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THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 



LIST OF THE BOOKS OF VACHEL 
LINDSAY 

Prose : — 

A Handy Guide for Beggars. 

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of 
Beauty. 

The Art of the Moving Picture. 

The Golden Book of Springfield. 

Verse : — 

General William Booth Enters Into Heaven 
and Other Poems. 

The Congo and Other Poems. 

The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems. 

The Golden Whales of California and Other 
Rhymes in the American Language. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK 
OF SPRINGFIELD 



BY 
VACHEL LINDSAY 

A CITIZEN OF fHAT TOWN 



Being the review of a book that will appear in the 
autumn of the year 2018, and an extended descrip- 
tion of Springfield, Illinois, in that year. 




Npto fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1920 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1920 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920. 



OCT 20 1320 



g)C!,A597902 



177 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Chaptee Page 

I. The Campbellite, the Florist and the Hostess 3 

II. The Prognosticator's Club 10 

III. How People of 1920 Think the Book Will 

Come, in 2018 19 

IV. History of the Michaels 49 

V. I Myself Enter into the Springfield of 2018.... 66 

VI. Kopensky Versus Boone 90 

VII. The Drug Stores, Coffee Houses and Dance 

Halls 103 

VIII. The Springfield Flag 117 

IX. The Beginning of the Flying Machine Riots.... 137 

X. The End of the Flying Machine Riots 154 

XI. St. Friend, and His Two Religious Orders 171 

XII. The Yellow Dance Halls Are Abolished 192 

XIII. Surto Hurdenburg is Lynched 209 

XIV. In the House of the Man From Singapore 226 

XV. Further Experiences in That Strange Man- 
sion „ _ , ^ 243 

XVI. The Return of Joseph Bartholdi Michael 266 

XVII. The Lynching of Boone. An interregnum of 

the Diary. How The Golden Book Appears 287 

XVIII. St. Friend and Avanel Read From The 

Golden Book „ „ 805 

XIX. Avanel and I Ascend to the Jungles of 

Heaven „ 318 

ni 



THE PROGNOSTICATOR'S CLUB 

1920 2018 

David Carson, Campbellite minister, 

becomes St. Friend 

Anne Morrison, a florist, 

becomes Roxana Grey 

Eloise Terry, the hostess 

becomes Patricia Anthony 

Clara Horton, a school teacher, 

becomes Josephine Windom 

Gregory Webster, an artist, 

becomes Sparrow Short 

Nathan Levi, a Jewish boy, 

becomes Rabbi Terence Ezekiel 

Margaret Evans, a Christian Scientist, 

becomes Rachel Madison 

Daisy Pearl Johnson, a negress, 

becomes Mary Timmons 

Nathaniel Davidson, an evangelist, 

becomes Cave Man Thomas 

Ruth Everett, a welfare worker, 

becomes Gwendolyn Charles 

John Fletcher, the doubter, 

becomes Dr. Mayo Sims 

Joseph Bartholdi Michael, I, 

becomes Joseph Bartholdi Michael, U > 



IV 



THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO ISADORA 



CHAPTER I 

THE CAMPBBLLITE, THE FLORIST AND THE HOSTESS 

In this, our town, we call "New Spring- 
field, ' ' David Carson, a young minister of the 
Disciples of Christ is a near neighbor of mine. 
He is a graduate of Bethany College. His 
great-grandfather studied there before him, 
when Alexander Campbell, the founder of 
Bethany, was in his prime. If you want to 
know of this man as we know him, read Rich- 
ardson 's staid old biography, or walk the 
shades of Bethany, West Virginia. Campbell, 
in our eyes, was the American pioneer the- 
ologian. 

He was devoted to the union of the churches 
of Christendom. He pleaded that all disciples 
of Christ call themselves ''simply" Chris- 
tians, and unite on those symbols and ordi- 
nances which Christendom has in common. 
If it would not make our great-grandfathers 
turn over in their graves, I and my neighbor 
would call ourselves ''simply" Campbellites. 
"We would do it for a human, and not lofty 
reason. It seems that those spiritually or 
physically descended from the early Camp- 



4 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

bellites are on family terms, no matter how 
they seem to roam in thought or experience, 
or no matter what their hereditary argumen- 
tative disposition. For a ' * Campbellite " is 
sure to argue, on the least provocation. There 
are traces of this tendency even in Richard- 
son's reverent biography. 

Ultra modern followers of Campbell hang 
in their libraries with unlimited pride a cer- 
tain Rembrandtesque lithograph of the great 
man, an heirloom that is now quite rare, and 
to be classed in its southern way, as the spin- 
ning wheels and old Bibles of the Mayflower 
are classed in a northern way. This lithograph 
is the enlargement of the engraving in the 
front of the Richardson biography, but much 
color and magic have been added. Out of the 
darkness emerges a smooth-shaven, high bred, 
masterful physiognomy more like that of the 
statesmen who were the fathers of the repub- 
lic, than of a member of any priesthood. 
Campbell's cheeks and eyes are still fired 
with youth and authority militant. He has a 
head bowed with thought, crowned with grey 
hair, and beneath his chin is the most states- 
manlike of cravats, with a peculiarly old- 
fashioned roll. Thus he must have looked, 
at the height of debate with the infidel. 

This is the man who put so much learning, 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 5 

and deathless controversy, and high distinc- 
tion into the log cabins of the Ohio river 
basin, especially the romantic regions of 
Mason and Dixon's line. On west of the Mis- 
sissippi his followers carried his light to 
Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles, and 
the cities of Alaska and Canada and the farms 
between. And they start 'round the world 
with it all over again at this hour. Yet in 
the end that light is apt to have a color of its 
origin, touched with Virginia, West Virginia, 
and Kentucky; — a southern gospel, far indeed 
from Plymouth Rock, or Manhattan Island. 
I can never forget the copy of the litho- 
graph that hung over my grandmother's 
front room fireplace in the patriarchal Fra- 
zee farm house in Indiana. Under it I heard 
proverbs from Campbell every summer, from 
the time I can remember anything. All those 
sayings were mixed up with stories that came 
with my people along the old Daniel Boone 
trail from Kentucky and Virginia. And when 
that old frame house was new and novel, and 
most other dwelling houses near were log 
cabins, Campbell had been a guest received 
with breathless reverence. Under that picture 
I was personally conducted through all the 
daguerreotypes and records pertaining to the 
Kentucky pioneers of our blood. 



6 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

And now, in Springfield, under the same 
rich lithograph my neighbor keeps the bound 
volumes of Campbell's Christian Baptist and 
Millenial Harbinger, once the arsenal of every 
debating *' elder" of our persuasion. My 
grandfather's copies were marked, every 
page, and these are marked by my radical 
friend, but with a different point of view. 

On a certain evening I am in the pastor *s 
study tracing with astonishment the sugges- 
tion of Christian Socialism in the first num- 
ber of the Harbinger. My Grandma had said 
nothing about that! 

Few of Campbell 's older followers dwell on 
the hope of a practical City of God that 
shouted from the covers even before they 
were opened. This reasonable, non-miraculous 
millenium is much in the mind of my neigh- 
bor, and he tells me again and again of a 
vision that he has of Springfield a hundred 
years hence. But more of this later. 

There is a woman who is florist of our town, 
Anne Morrison a descendant of the Chapman 
family. She holds in special reverence, John 
Chapman, (Johnny Appleseed,) who began 
his labors in a region a little north of Alexan- 
der Campbell's diocese, in the Ohio basin. He 
remains a tradition among the more northern 
group of those who worshipped Campbell, and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 7 

among similar pioneers. He is especially 
honored by that splendid sect, the Sweden- 
borgians, for he was a preacher and teacher 
of the doctrines of Swedenborg. But he was 
even more notably a nurseryman. He was 
deserving of the laurels of Thoreau, three 
times and more, and by the test of life rather 
than writing, to him belongs nearly every 
worth-while crown of Whitman. He skir- 
mished on the very edge of the frontier, but 
fought the wilderness, not the Indian. The 
aborigines thought him a great medicine man 
and holy man, because of his magical bag of 
seeds, for along their trails, wherever he 
tramped, there soon came up pennyroyal and 
all beneficient herbs. With the tenderness of 
St. Francis he wept over every wounded bird, 
and with the steadiness of a nation builder, 
he planted orchards of apples in the openings 
of the forest, fenced them in, and left them 
for the pioneers to find, long after. He wore 
for a shirt and sole article of clothing an old 
gunny-sack with holes cut for arms and legs, 
and winter or summer slept in the hollow tree 
on the pile of old leaves, and weathered it 
past seventy years, while the great Whitman 
lived in houses, and Thoreau was on Walden 
but a season or two. These men left behind 
them certain writings, but Johnny Appleseed 



8 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

left behind him apples, orchards heavy with 
fruit, beauty from the very black earth, and 
a tradition whose wonder shall yet ring 
through all the palaces of mankind. He was 
swift as the deer, and gentle as the fawn, — 
and stern with himself, as the Red Indian. 
Like Christ and Socrates he wrote only in the 
soil. He was welcomed more like an angel than 
a man in the pioneer cabins, and if ever there 
was an American saint left uncanonized in 
1920, it is John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed, 
and by 2018 he is canonized indeed, and has 
his niche in the Springfield Cathedral, accord- 
ing to Anne Morrison's revelation. 

Another friend is a great hostess of Spring- 
field, Eloise Terry, by name. Her enemies de- 
clare that she is the representative of her 
family fortune, and little else. But they are 
apt to be people who do not attend her quite 
earnest parties, where every ramification of 
the social fabric is candidly examined, at 
least for one evening. The most competent 
person is brought in to speak of his strand of 
the web, be he bootblack or jailbird or poet. 
But this is an advance on her family who are 
dully conventional, to the core of their souls. 
And her constant companions, though they 
are in fact people of the same general stratifi- 
cation of good fortune as herself, are selected 



"^ 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRrN'GFIELD 9 

for their human interest in her unconsciously 
inhuman inquisitions. And inquisitions, after 
all, come but once a month or so. In general 
she and her cronies are taking a decent part 
in politics, and their wealth does not interfere 
with an unprejudiced estimate of candidates, 
entirely apart from bank accounts. Her pres- 
ence in town makes for the truth, and for 
progress that much. Liars hate her intensel}^ 
Petty political lies fade before her, however 
poor her remedies may be for the great lies. 
She is a golden-haired girl, around thirty 
years of age, with three thriving and well- 
reared children. Her distinction, in my eyes, 
is not her opinions, but the fact that she 
dresses in schemes allied to the gold of her 
hair. I meet her on the street like a bit of 
blessed sunshine. Also her heart is quite 
warm. If she had been a musician, instead 
of a kind of contemporary conversational his- 
torian, she would have talked of music, in- 
stead of events, with the same ardor and fine 
tone, to a similar circle of friends, and brought 
in the singers, to sing for them, from the very 
gutters if necessary, and have been as decent 
to such songbirds as she knew how. 



CHAPTER n 

THE PROGNOSTICATOR'S CLUB 

The young disciple minister and I decide 
that the people of Springfield who see the 
vision of the city of the future should be 
brought together, and we write some carefully 
worded invitations. We organize a Prognosti- 
cator 's Club and meet in the Sun Parlor of the 
Leland Hotel. 

One of the first to join, after our florist 
friend and the great hostess of Springfield, is 
John Fletcher, a Doubter. He is a person in 
whom we place much confidence in practical 
affairs. He is high authority in the financial 
circles of Springfield. He is religious, on Sun- 
day only, from eleven till twelve-thirty, when 
he sits in his pew. He represents the present 
State House Tiew which takes for granted 
that the fewer ideas men have the better, 
if only the crowd in power *'get theirs.'* 
The general assumption is: — politics is busi- 
ness and business is politics and the only 
worth while citizens are those that "get 
the money," and, of course, those others who 
keep it safely and who correctly add the ac- 
counts till the money is wanted. They hate 
any new current in any party. And they 
hate the idea of any clau wanting any- 

10 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 11 

thing except established well-dressed bank 
accounts to rule the city. Children are sent to 
universities to polish their manners, but not 
to bring back any changed thoughts on these 
subjects. 

The gentleman who incarnates this dream 
lives in the north, is therefore a Republican. 
He is quite sure the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion meant that millionaires are exempt from 
criticism, except from other millionaires or 
their shrewedest lackeys, and that the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation was sent forth into the 
world to establish more thoroughly the lac- 
key, the toady, the tuft hunter, the snob, the 
bootlicker, and the parasite, in the service of 
the stupidest holders of money and land. He 
will defend this position quite ardently, al- 
most in those terms, and he is quite sure that 
anyone who protests against his views is a 
**red." And ''red," "radical," "anarchist," 
and ' ' liberal ' ' are absolutely synonymous, ac- 
cording to his thinking. He is sure that any- 
one who does not want to be a millionaire or 
serve one well is contemplating arson. He is 
quite sure that every large bank account is 
automatically moral, that every small one is 
almost moral, and the one crime is to be with- 
out money. He is quite convinced that Abra- 
ham Lincoln died to establish such ideals 



12 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

more firmly in the Eepublican Party, and 
when he is in the South he maintains that 
Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson lived 
and toiled and suffered to establish them in 
the Democratic Party, and did it with emi- 
nent success: that all other notions have 
been recently imported from the shameful 
streets of Russia. When he sent his son to 
college he urged him to spend money on the 
conservative professors and their sons and 
daughters, and to put the radical professors 
in bad odor with the ''best fellows," and get 
them fired as soon as the trustees would listen 
to one so young. 

All this point of view is in my friend '3 
tone of voice and gesture. He has inherited 
part of his money, and married the rest, and 
the income pays for a good caretaker. He 
himself is a physician for the most extensively 
landed families in central Illinois. He dresses 
well, so people think he knows all about medi- 
cine. He is squarely set, has a heavy jaw, a 
steadying manner, a kindly disposition, pays 
the best salaries to his office boy and secre- 
taries and the people who work his farms. 
He has the greatest aversion to oaths, bad 
manners, adultery, and has a literary turn. 
Though he looks like an old prize fighter with 
a touch of deacon-sleekness, he reads Mon- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 13 

taigne, Lord Chesterfield, Thackeray, Shake- 
speare, and the like. He enjoys discussing in 
the most sympathetic way every human trait 
that has to do with purely domestic dramatic 
and personal emotions. His wife is a val- 
iant Daughter of the American Revolution 
and his daughter belongs to the most snob- 
bish sorority to be discovered for miles. He 
has been ''right in the wagon" whenever a 
bit of near royalty has passed through 
Springfield, and his manner though blunt, 
was deferential. His wildest turn is for radi- 
cal painters, and he has the best collection 
west of the Hudson of the now forgotten 
cubists. 

Of far different sort is the next member of 
our Club. She is of the fine nerved creatures oi^ 
this world, a spring beauty in whose conversa- 
tion I take delight. She is a teacher in one of 
the Springfield ward schools, and a sober little 
reader of The Atlantic Monthly, and we quar- 
rel a bit about that. But her taste there repre- 
sents her desire for fine grained English what- 
ever the thought conveyed. When Clara 
Horton takes delight in life, it comes in a 
flash that sets her friends aflame. The school 
marm is gone. She ceases to admonish me. 
The imaginary eyes of her censorious pupils 
are banished, and I am no longer a pupil^ and 



14 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

she is the daughter of a nymph of the most 
delicate mood and a faun of the gentlest sort. 
Her whole physical fabric is aglow with the 
idea of the book or the event or the mere 
day's sunshine or tomorrow's movie. Her 
skin shows the whiteness of a stock that has 
been too inbred for many generations for com- 
plete vigor, the gentle nymph and the gentle 
faun met too often, and there were not quite 
enough bullies or peasants among her far 
European ancestors. Her people have been 
for many generations in America. Every line 
of her family, north and south, has been re- 
membered with the greatest comprehension 
of every taste and impulse. She gets her 
silky black hair from one grandmother, and 
her thousand dimples from another no doubt. 
She openly hates the complacency of our 
''first families." Ideas go pouring through 
her head, all the time. 

As for the families representing the de- 
fended and entrenched fortunes of Spring- 
field, theirs is still the practice of keeping 
their children out of public school, for fear 
of contamination with teachers who read such 
papers as The Atlantic Monthly, and other 
vulgar publications. The children must be sent 
oft* to teachers who flatter and flatter and flat- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 15 

ter. But we do not talk about these matters 
generally. We talk about New Springfield. 

The Prognosticators discover that still 
others have been dreaming joyfully all alone 
of the future of Springfield. One fiery artist 
of our town brings in quite definite testimony. 
He was born in the village of Eochester, near 
to Springfield, but has no sign in his manner 
of being a citizen of the United States. Quite 
an old man, Gregory Webster has the ways 
of boulevard heroes of Paris who swung 
their canes like swashbucklers, among the 
cafes, in 1876. He speaks English with 
a French accent. Yet he has been a tre- 
mendous force for good in the history of 
American Art. Thousands upon thousands of 
pupils have passed through his studios. He 
has been a courageous patron of young artists. 
With infallible taste he has purchased their 
best pictures, as soon as their pictures were 
good, thereby giving them reputations twenty 
years sooner, and himself *' going broke." 
He has championed the most elegant crafts- 
manship. In torrents of tireless language, 
with an unflagging zeal and animation, he has 
talked down and out the cheap and popular 
conception of the uses of art. He has exalted 
the great portrait masters. He has exalted 
brushwork and drawing into a ritual, and 



16 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

good color into a finality of the soul. He has 
been marvelously generous in his sympathy 
and his patience with budding talent, and 
therefore the artists' aspiration of America 
for a whole generation has come to his front 
door. He is, in actual subject matter, in his 
own pictures an unimaginative creature. He 
is able to paint jishes better than men and 
rabbits better than women, and yet, since he 
painted fishes and rabbits with Olympian 
finality, they have been enshrined in the high- 
est galleries of the world next to portraits of 
human creatures by Rembrandt and Hals and 
Velasquez. 

A stranger to these others comes to me. 
Nathan Levi, son of one of the Rabbis 
of our tiny Springfield Ghetto. He at once 
wins my heart. I have always found myself 
in peculiar sympathy with the Jews. Once 
past the moment of shyly seeking my confi- 
dence, he is full of the Jewish expressiveness 
and demonstration. He is astonished beyond 
measure to discover a double consciousness 
within himself. In this century he is as ortho- 
dox as his father, and a young man devoted 
to the routine of the pawn shop. In 2018 he ia 
in a hundred ways opposite. 

Another newcomer, Margaret Evans, is a 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 17 

Christian Science Reader. She is beautiful, in 
this day, and though she does not speak of 
her mirror in 2018, as does the headlong Jew- 
ish boy, I know she will always be beautiful in 
body and soul. She has fathomed the holy 
grace and immortal gladness of her teaching, 
and I can well believe she is immortal in this 
place, under our oak and apple trees. 

Still another is a Springfield Negress who 
is a preacher among her own people. She has 
not a single Caucasian contour to her face or 
figure, yet all the world must admit that 
Daisy Pearl Johnson is beautiful as she iS 
divinely young. She is ^' black but comely," 
according to the scripture. And she is eager 
in all the matters of the mind and spirit. 

Another prophet, Nathanial Davidson, 
gathers several denominations under one 
temporary roof, and preaches to them about 
hell. He was once a Y. M. C. A. physical di- 
rector, and he ranges in attributes from Cali- 
ban to higher things, and looks much like 
Douglas Fairbanks and William A. Sunday. 
He receives an invitation to join the Prognos- 
ticator's Club. 

Then there is a woman who was a welfare 
worker in France. Ruth Everett has such 
a sleek and sophisticated grace, and her 
face is so snobbish yet so Alexandrian Greek 



18 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

that I have often called her "The Daughter 
of Lysippus." In every line is the elegance 
that old sculptor might have loved. In pomp, 
upon her throne, and she makes any chair her 
throne, she is like ''Sara Siddons as the 
Tragic Muse." as painted by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds. 

And here you have men and women who 
see the vision, each in a strange and mystical 
fashion. 



CHAPTER in 

HOW PEOPLE OF 1920 THINK THE GOLDEN BOOK 
WILL COME IN 2018 

When we, the Prognosticator's Club, come 
together for our meetings it is inevitable 
that our talk should be of the Springfield of 
our fancy and of the manner in which the 
vision has come to each one. 

The first to testify, when we call the 
members together in the Sun Parlor of the 
Leland Hotel is the young Campbellite min- 
ister. He tells us of a dream that has come to 
him on many evenings by his study fire. 

In a vision he is reborn three or four gen- 
erations in the future. He is a priest of the 
Catholic Church. He is known as St. Friend, 
the Giver of Bread. He is almost alone in a 
vast Gothic Cathedral He is astonished to 
find himself changed in body, conviction, and 
habit from all his former routine, but enough 
memory remains for the comparison, and he 
knows he is still himself. But of this another 
time. 

There are a few people praying at the sta- 

19 



20 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

tions of the cross, in this, Springfield's new 
church of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the old 
site of Sixth and Reynold's Streets. The time 
is All Saint's Day, Anno Domini, 2018. As he 
tells us the story, the very picture springs be- 
fore me in elaborate detail, as though I wit- 
nessed the event in my own person. The 
church is indeed gigantic for so small a town 
to build, and in many particulars as well as 
general type it is like Notre Dame, Paris. We 
behold with him how a book of air, gleaming 
with spiritual gold, comes flying in through 
the walls as though they were but shadows. 
It is a book open as it soars, and every flutter- 
ing page is richly bordered and illuminated. 
It has wings of black, and above them wings 
of azure. Long feathers radiate from the 
whirring, soaring pennons. The book circles 
above the heads of the congregation. From 
the sky comes music incredibly sweet. 

The book flies toward the altar, where St. 
Friend finds himself standing. The wings 
fade. This day moves with rapid breath. The 
congregation has been trooping in as the visi- 
tant from the world of spirit-wonder has been 
settling into its own holy place on the altar. 

Now St. Friend is in the act of reading the 
gleaming volume. It is a book of homilies, 
addressed directly to New Springfield. Day 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 21 

after day the whole population flocks to the 
cathedral to hear, in the blazing kaleidoscopic 
costumes of that time, — all kinds of people, 
saints and sinners. But to speak briefly of the 
essential story, the town is transfigured and 
redeemed beyond any merely mundane plan. 
And so we call 2018 the Mystic Year, and give 
it other honorable titles of similar import. 
For the town, then, becomes half-way millen- 
nial. Of these qualified but stirring wonders, 
another time. Let us turn for the moment to 
the second witness, and hear her version of the 
appearance of the Golden Book. 

The florist had already revealed to me, when 
I was buying red roses in her gorgeous green- 
house, that she had a strange recurrent pic- 
ture of the days of Johnny Appleseed's tri- 
umph going through her head. She repeats 
her story to the other members of the club. 

It is of Anno Domini 2018, and though she 
is still a florist she wears her rue with a dif- 
ference. She finds herself the exponent of a 
religion of flowers. Her name is Koxana Grey. 
She is daughter of a ''Mother Grey,'* who 
was in like manner daughter of a ''Mother 
Grey.'* There is much interesting detail ir- 
relevant to the present point, but I may say 
she is first moved to tell me the story because 
she finds my name on the roll of the back- 



22 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

sliders among the devotees of this 2018 reli- 
gion of flowers. She has a double conscious- 
ness that keeps a jnind in both periods, but is 
surprised to find both my name and my very 
self in the new time. 

But as to Johnny Appleseed, which is more 
to the point of this chapter, she \b most up- 
lifted of heart to find that he at last comes 
into his own in our city and his name is whis- 
pered there perpetually. 

In his name Springfield has developed the 
great Amaranth Apple Orchards; it is said, 
from seeds he gave in his lifetime to a certain 
pioneer, Hunter Kelly. And it is taught in 
his name, or with the mood he engenders in 
our hearts, that he who eats of the Amaranth 
Apple is filled with a love of eternal beauty, 
and it is used as the City's understood symbol 
of beauty. 

Then there is a teaching'in his name that he 
who, after certain prayers, eats of certain 
acorns, or walks under the oak saplings 
that come from them, accepts in some sense 
promptings toward eternal goodness. It has 
come about that eating the acorn, is the city 's 
accepted metaphor for the search for right- 
eousness. The earlier devotees of the oak, 
planted a notable group that have of late 
grown taller than the California redwoods. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 23 

They are in a complete circle of twelve, sur- 
rounding the very edges of the city. The 
first two, which are the tallest, are by the 
inside northwest gate, put there long before 
there was any gate, by Hunter Kelly, of 
whom more hereafter. But these oaks, the 
pillars of Springfield's temple-cathedral-syn- 
agogue, whose roof is the sky, are made the 
theme of many varieties of teaching, all of 
which goes bai3k to Johnny Appleseed, who 
gave to Hunter Kelly the original acorns that 
made the trees of Oak Ridge, and these pillar 
oaks as well. 

There is another teaching, abroad in 
Springfield, 2018, the teaching of Democ- 
racy, of which the Symbol is the Golden 
Rain-Tree brought from New Harmony, In- 
diana. It is said in Springfield, and taught 
with especial emphasis by the devotees of the 
Flower Religion, that he who enters under 
the shade of the Rain-Tree boughs and leaves 
and flowers, enters the gate of eternal de- 
mocracy, and so the trees are often called 
Gate-Trees. 

And then having told us so much, my friend 
speaks again and shows to our spirit eyes an 
out-of-door statue of John Chapman, Johnny 
Appleseed, near which she finds herself just 
before sunrise of All Saint's Day, Anno 



24 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Domini, 2018. Roxana is there to watch for 
the dawn. She walks alone, according to the 
discipline, saying certain prayers. The park 
is on the edge of the Governor's yard. 

A great rose-colored, egg-shaped boulder is 
dug from the midst of the lawn of the Gov- 
ernor's yard. She hides in a clump of bushes 
to watch; for the digging is by no mortal 
hand, but by spiritual presences which are 
the souls of the primeval trees of the city, 
looming, whispering, rustling above the place. 
Then the boulder is there, rolled over on the 
grass, and a bolt from the clear starry heaven 
strikes it. The book comes flying forth. It 
has the same airy, other-worldly presence and 
power as when described by the first witness. 
But it soars to the Shrine of Flowers conse- 
crated to the especial sect and the esoteric 
teachings of Roxana Grey and her immediate 
predecessors. But she does not know where 
it has gone, it has circled and wandered so, 
appearing and disappearing. And it is with 
a tremendous leaping of the heart she finds it 
next day on her altar with wings gone but 
with pages open to be read to the faithful. 
Its main themes are the teachings of the trees, 
of which we have spoken, woven with her own 
traditional doctrines of the flowers, but all 
these teachings in most heightened and glori- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 25 

fiod aspects. Along the margins are old texts 
from the special books of her shrine, and from 
Swedenborg and the Old and New Testa- 
ments. 

"When the great hostess of Springfield be- 
gins her testimony my first question, since I 
am but a man, is whether her hair in 2018 
gleams with the same darling golden hue. 

And have the red-haired girls the courage 
to dress like daffodils, in 2018? She insists I 
am the wicked one to be pressing this devilish 
investigation, when there are rarer things to 
impart, — but in the glad Mystic Year, since 
I must know, she is endowed with the hair of 
what might be called her 1920 Grandmother- 
self, and the only change she notices is ajmore 
painful tendency to freckles, from riding 
horseback in a certain notable cavalry, behind 
a certain young lady commander, Avanel 
Boone, — of whom more anon. 

The most important revelation to her, socio- 
logically, is that she finds herself no longer 
one of *'our best people." That is, she has 
not much money, and no privilege of collect- 
ing rents in the style that is now the sole 
reason many of the ''old families" are in 
Springfield for a part of the year. She is in 
Springfield because she loves a certain fac- 
tory. She loves it because she is Patricia 



26 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Anthony, forewoman, and can order people 
about. Her factory is at Ninth and Converse 
Streets, on the same ground with The Illinois 
Watch Company and The Sangamo Electric 
Company. It is a place where telescopic and 
microscopic lenses are made. As for the Golden 
Book about which she is all aquiver, she finds 
the volume when she is inspecting the place in 
the late afternoon of All Saint's Day, Anno 
Domini, 2018. She says I am there with her, 
carrying on, as of old, in the same conceited, 
philandering way. I am helping take inven- 
tory of the supplies needed for the next week, 
as my excuse for the tour. The factory echoes 
hollow with our solitary steps. Indeed it 
takes her aback to meet the book in such an 
off-hand, teasing moment. 

But there is The Golden Book. Every 
transparent page, which flutters as though 
with the gusty thoughts of our spirits, is 
written in letters of fire. On the first leaf is 
an inscription delivering the work to her by 
name: '* Patricia Anthony." 

She was always a conceited woman, and 
here is the first thing that ever happened to 
her to justify it, I say to her, speaking as one 
1920 person to another. 

But on, to 2018: For all the Golden Book 
is penned so gorgeously, the discussion is 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 27 

largely economic. There are citations from 
Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Henry George, and 
on, forward, to Joseph Bartholdi Michael the 
second, and Black Hawk Boone, — Springfield 
sages of 2018. All these are cited to corrobo- 
rate, in various items, piecemeal, an abso- 
lutely new economic remedy for the world. 

Patricia sees herself reading the volume 
to the workers, through the lunch hour. The 
book keeps its wings. Often, as though stirred 
with divine impatience, it dashes and flutters 
on through the walls, as though they were 
shadows, then comes soaring back again. 
Each time it returns the work is re-opened, 
at the first page, and newer and more difficult 
teaching is written there, till the volume is 
no longer economic. It is as though a work by 
Henry George had been changed into a work 
by Swedenborg! Now it shows how to make 
microscopes that will enable all Springfield 
to find the fairies of the fairies, and telescopes 
that will discover the angels that guard the 
angels. At last the book instructs the devout 
how to woo and win these creatures, without 
turning upon them any glass of cold scrutiny, 
how to see them with the natural eye, and 
touch them with the natural hand. 

The little school teacher finds herself reborn 
in 2018 as head of the three-color printing de- 



28 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

partment of the school where she teaches. In 
the reincarnation she bears the name of 
Josephine Windom, She stands helpless when 
a Rock and Kopensky mob, and children of 
Doctor Mayo Sims seize the winged volume 
from the altar of St. Friend, apparently 
against its will, like a hundred men binding 
an angel. Near the market house between 
Fourth and Fifth on Monroe they pile fire- 
wood upon the book. They pour on oil. They 
light the pyre. All is turned to ashes. Later 
a band of Municipal University rescuers ar- 
rives. They are led by her assistant in the 
color printing department, Horace Andrews. 

Slowly as though greeting this band the 
flames renew themselves, and take form. 
There is the book again, but four times as 
large, with wings, binding, leaves, and letters 
of fire. Then suddenly it is flying above the 
city. Its covers are of the iridescence of a 
shell, with a golden shimmering. The wings 
are music making. 

The book is a friend of men. It is disposed 
to descend to its friends. It is carried in flying 
and fluttering state to the three-color print- 
ing department of the school, where hundreds 
of rainbow replicas of the pages are made, 
though not on this earth can replicas of the 
wings be made. And while the book is within 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 29 

the four walls, the school becomes a place 
of fairyland. Every cottage has its own copy 
of the volume in time. Edition after edition 
goes out, first from the school, then from the 
greater, more dazzling printing presses of the 
University, to the scholars and artists of Eu- 
rope and Asia, through their colleagues who 
are attending the World's Fair of the Univer- 
sity of Springfield. But the book itself, having 
once been copied in the printing room there, 
flies around the Truth Tower, the center of 
town; it goes up in higher and wider circles. 
At last it is seen, a star among the stars. 
Meanwhile the transfiguration of the city 
begins. 

The future plays a curious trick with our 
artist friend, the valiant and patriotic Ameri- 
can who sent forth all his sons against the 
Germans. He is astonished to find himself 
reborn a pacifist, Anno Domini, 2018. And 
there are other sad changes. He sees himself 
in a mirror as a long-haired creature, a 
ragged libel of the William Cullen Bryant 
type, with similar features, but dressed in 
ready made garments, and with much food 
spilled down the front of his vest. His nick- 
name in 2018 is ''Old Sparrow Short," be- 
cause at that time the sparrow is his favorite 
bird, and because he is tall. This increased 



80 THE GOLDEN BOOK OP^ SPRINGFIELD 

height is the only concession to his vanity in 
the revelation, for in 1920 he has been obliged 
to stand on his toes over and over, to give 
any impression of height. 

In 2018, though a pacifist, he is still militant 
in the esthetic field. He is a leader of a group 
of young Springfield painters, sculptors, and 
architects who are always dynamiting our 
stagnant exhibitions with appropriate bombs 
of paint. He insists it is the painting and 
sculpture of his followers that make Spring- 
field such a dazzling success. He is still the 
head teacher of the Springfield Art Associa- 
tion which has its headquarters at the 
Edwards Place on North Fifth, as of old. 

His political hobby in 2018 is that we 
should return to the glory of the ancient time 
of the unchained nations, especially, as he 
hears himself say, the era of peace and good 
will when the Czar instituted the Hague trib- 
unal, and Andrew Carnegie sent out his 
peace lecturers. He is sent to our local World 
Government prison which is built across the 
street from the City and County Jails on Sev- 
enth and Jefferson Streets. He is here locked 
up for emphasizing his views to the point of 
world-treason. The book flies in through the 
walls of his cell as though those walls were 
shadows, and as though the book were made 



THE GOLDEN SOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 31 

of but air and sunshine, woven together. He 
who is doomed to become this awful Sparrow 
Short declares that the principal mandate of 
the volume is for the immediate dissolution of 
the entire International Government. It de- 
mands a restoration of the conditions of 1913. 
The mandate of the volume for the artist is 
the same as for the nation. ''Live like the 
Sparrow. Be yourself completely. Utter your 
soul, regardless of cost.'' This condition, uni- 
versally accepted, will secure a real world- 
peace, and one that is not hypocrisy or op- 
pression. 

It comes the turn of the Jewish boy I 
so much admire. He says that in 2018 he is 
''Rabbi Terence Ezekiel," a rank heretic, 
and an old man. He dreams of himself as 
being the grandson and the son of two other 
■Rabbis of the same name and as having a 
rebel congregation all his own in 2018, of 
being in their estimation and that of many 
others, the leading citizen of the community. 
His temple is on the site of the old Isador 
Kanner Synagogue. He it is, who, as the 
leading champion of the aggrandizement of 
the photoplay as a general social factor, figlits 
his best chum, St. Friend, when films are a 
•public issue, because St. Friend preadlies 
against them from the Cathedral. No longer 



32 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

is his life the slow, devious midnight-lamp 
technique of the pawnshop, the furtive, the 
futile, the too confidential. Not his the bad 
street abounding in second-hand stores and 
cheap rooming lofts. 

To his temple come the wise of all the 
world, and there is preached the gospel of 
righteousness as symbolized by the planting 
all around the world of the Ezekiel Oak (for 
thus he has taken a leaf from the testimony of 
Roxana Grey), and the distribution of all 
other great trees, including the Golden Rain- 
Tree and the Apple Amaranth. But within 
this wave of beneficence his sect has a pecu- 
liar and especial discipline, as rigid and elab- 
orate as Leviticus, which is, in another set of 
forms, essentially the same curious flowering 
of the Jewish mind on the same general level 
of the soul. When he looks into the glass he 
sees, in 1920, a young rascal who has stooped 
shoulders, from long bending over the jewelry 
and watches he has mended. He sees dull- 
brown hair and eyes, a blank face, a heavy 
jaundiced skin, all of which give the lie to the 
great brain. And he is five feet in height. 

In 2018 he is six feet four, an -old man, but 
with a blazing eye and a voice like the surf 
in a storm. His hair is brilliant black, his face 
is that of the Arabian war horse and the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 33 

American eagle. Into his temple come all the 
wise of the world, week after week, and he 
introduces them, and they speak to his people 
and the rest. But he is to deliver his own dis- 
course on a certain day in the autumn of the 
Mystic Year. It is a little before the begin- 
ning of the services. Amid faint music from 
afar the light before the doors of the taber- 
nacle is suddenly enriched in color and splen- 
dor. The holy doors swing open with a noble 
deliberation, and there, instead of the Torah, 
is The Book of Air and Wonder, — The Golden 
Book, poised like a cloud and a moon and a 
bird. It has six wings, woven from the rays 
of a strange moonrise, perhaps like the wings 
of the cherubim, that bent above the ark long 
ago. The book settles on the desk. The pen- 
nons fade. The volume is open at the begin- 
ning of a series of prophecies about the soul 
of Springfield, as though Springfield were a 
living personality and not a mere assembly of 
citizens, and as though the book were a per- 
son, and not mere wings of air. 

He tells us that he sees a face much like 
mine in the assembly of 2018, and I have not 
changed, but have the same yellow hair and 
pale face, as he says, *' still look like a 
Swede," and, (as he insists, with the pawn- 
broker's emphasis on material texture), I 



34 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

wear the same suit of clothes, and carry the 
same iron and leather cane. 

And so he tells us his tale of double con- 
sciousness, with the honest glow of the 
blood that I love in all leaders of his race, 
with that thick fire which no other race can 
equal. His synagogue is rebuilt on a vast 
scale in 2018 to hold Golden Book devotees; 
And this is but the beginning of his history 
of great affairs in Springfield. 

The Christian Science Eeader says she 
sees my face in the Sunday morning 
Christian Science congregation of her vi- 
sion. We are one and all given new names. 
Her name in 2018 is Rachel Madison, and, 
though I am not of her faith today, in the 
new time I have grown toward this light, and 
she sees me with my unfortunate yellow hair 
and my iron cane, for all the world as the 
young pawnbroker does, but sitting in the 
back of the Christian Science temple listening 
attentively, Sunday after Sunday. She says 
that it is a silver book that we see upon the 
great day of November 1st, 2018. It sheds an 
ineffable white light, it is almost as impal- 
pable as a comet in the sky, yet. a substance 
that comes flying through the walls as though 
they were but gleaming shadows. The air 
is filled with music from all the high heavens. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 35 

The book spreads six wings, like those of 
celestial swans. The pages have no illumina- 
tions or other abominable traces of the Gothic. 

The book circles above the ecstatic and 
transfixed assembly, then it settles upon the 
desk between the two older books there, and 
in its presence they become like itself, books 
of air. 

And so she reads to the people, with the 
other reader, who stands beside her accord- 
ing to old custom. They read as though by 
long understanding, but actually led as in a 
trance, through alternate pages of the three 
books. 

Almost in a day the church is rebuilt. It 
becomes a tremendous white dome, a house 
of devotion, where the whole city worships 
as one soul. Then begins the one new evolu- 
tion of the town toward healing, and the 
peace of the clear sky. 

The negress who sees prophetic visions is 
easily persuaded to add her testimony about 
the book. Her name in 2018 is Mary Tim- 
mons, and she is nicknamed '* Pious Mary." 
She is most voluble concerning the wonders of 
the new time. But to the matter of the book 
at once. She finds herself in her church, in 
the place where the Baptist Evangelical 
chapel stood a century before. And it is still 



36 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

called the ' ' Baptist Evangelical. ' ' The house 
of worship is now gorgeous with curious jun- 
gle-mooded ornaments, pillars which are so 
carved as to seem moss-hung and vine-wo«nd. 
It is as though we were in the shade of things 
too high for man. All this house of worship 
has been evolved by her cousin, the great 
architect John Emis, who is also a member 
of this congregation, and a powerful exhorter 
among his own people, despite all his world 
fame among paler races. It is in the midst 
of his designs she moves, on this great day. 
With Pentecostal power her people are sing- 
ing * ' Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. ' ' While the 
faces are uplifted, the book of air, the book 
that gleams with spiritual gold, flies in 
through the walls as though they were but 
shadows. There is a mighty glory shout from 
the congregation. It is, according to Mary 
Timmons, answered by music from '*the 
highest sanctorium of the meridian sky." 
There are twenty heavenly doves soaring in 
a circle around the book. Outside of them is 
a circle of robins. All these birds fly through 
the walls and away, while the book settles 
upon the reading desk. The wings do not 
fade, but cover the pulpit with plumes of 
azure, plumes of ebony, peacock feathers. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 37 

each with three eyes, and long feathery golden 
threads that are spreading and scattering like 
loose silk. Yet these things seem but as clouds 
spun by necromancy and as words of the 
angels made visible. 

Then Mary Timmons takes a strange turn, 
and insists it is, after all, only a copy of the 
Bible, open at the Beatitudes. Glorified in 
this way it brings about the higher emancipa- 
tion of her people. Beginning with this con- 
gregation they are stirred to the depths of 
their more creative selves. Devout compos- 
ers, the kind that once gave birth to one line 
spirituals, sung like *' rounds," now develop 
epic forms of composition that are allied to 
these, so that great and musical shouts echo 
from mouth to mouth and breast to breast 
with three hundred singing, and then the 
whole African race singing. And instead of 
simply expressing the massed devotion of 
Africa, as of old, these more personal spir- 
ituals record the lyric cry of this or that black 
poet. Africa-in-America now sings the spe- 
cial story of the black statesman, the black 
farmer, or even the devout architect John 
Emis and the like. And the people and race 
of Mary Timmons, once natural orators, but 
no one a better creator than another, sud- 



38 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

denly flower individually. Their genius be- 
comes intensely centered in a few, and there 
are speakers with definite, individual mes- 
sages, who shout not only wonderful round 
rolling words, but phrases with whip lash and 
sentences with sword edge, in orations as in- 
dividual as the world demands that art shall 
be. The African man with the soul of the 
fox, now speaks like the fox, as is his right 
and duty, the man with the soul of the ele- 
phant now speaks like the elephant, as is his 
right and duty, and the woman with the heart 
of the nightingale now speaks like the night- 
ingale. 

Our evangelist reveals to us his dream that 
in the Mystic Year 2018, he is the Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Springfield Athletic Union and his 
nickname is Cave Man Thomas. On a certain 
day, in the fall of 2018, the president of the 
Athletic Union is dying. He is "said to be" 
poisoned by a political foe. He hands a key 
to Cave Man Thomas. It opens the ofificial 
roller-top desk, which is in a building on the 
site of the present Y. M. C. A. on Seventh 
Street and Capital Avenue. There is a book, 
the size and shape and general appearance of 
Spaulding's Athletic Guide, with the same 
man with a baseball bat, on the cover. The 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 39 

near pamphlet has no wingg or other such 
fantastic ornament It is mundane paper and 
ink, with a yellow back. 

According to his tale, we two read it alone 
of nights. We follow its counsel as one would 
secret foot-ball signals. We do not betray the 
source of our wisdom to any but Mayor Ko- 
pensky and his friend Dr. Sims. We see large 
results of our labors. We two, acting for the 
Mayor and the Doctor, smash the face of 
everyone who does not submit to our dogmas 
about Hell, which we get from the very front 
pages of the book. We have more sluggers 
on our side every hour. We give God and the 
Mayor and the Doctor the glory, and take 
none of it ourselves. We hear no music in the 
air or such like nonsense, while these things 
are going on. The Cave Man insists that the 
town is much improved by our policy. Of his 
predestined valor I may discourse at an op- 
portune time. But meanwhile let me show 
you a further variation from the typical story 
about The Golden Book. 

I am more eager to know how the welfare 
worker finds herself in the mirrors of 2018 
than to receive any other news of that time 
from her. Despite all her graces she has no 
especial personal vam'tv. She is more imperi- 



40 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

ous than vain. But I gently insist upon her 
confidence till she confesses that she finds her- 
self in the mirrors of 2018 much the same, but 
with a greater rush of blood through all that 
magnificent slender frame, and a consequent 
higher color. In her dream she rejoices in a 
great resiliency, a greater long-bow curve in 
action, as she walks with even more of her 
humorously commanding way. Her name in 
the new time is Gwendolyn Charles. 

Gwendolyn Charles is, in 2018, a motion- 
picture director and scenario writer. She 
claims Rabbi Terence Ezekiel and many other 
choice spirits among her stockholders and 
backers. 

For her enterprise generally runs at a loss, 
like Grand Opera, and great orchestras, and 
great universities. 

I must at this time concern myself with her 
story of All Saints ' Day, 2018. Very early in 
the morning she finds herself in her leading 
theatre which is on the site of the Old Fancy 
Bazar on the South side of the Square ; by her 
side is the aged Rabbi Terence Ezekiel mut- 
tering enthusiastically to himself over strange 
and magnificent doings. With him are the 
inner company of enthusiasts for her film en- 
terprise. And the body of the theatre is filled 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 4i 

up with its regular patrons, in a most unusual 
frame of mind. 

There is thrown upon the screen the produc- 
tion of the studios for that month, the story 
of Hunter Kelly, the founder of Springfield, 
whose regular solemn festival is July elev- 
enth, but who is celebrated in a thousand 
ways; all year. Unexpected things are hap- 
pening in the operator's box. And it is 
a new kind of a projecting machine, utterly 
beyond the current devices. But let us con 
sider the story of Hunter Kelly, as it rolls by 
on the screen, the early part of which, to the 
year 1920, has been long known to me. 

Hunter Kelly was an Irish Catholic boy 
reared in a Pittsburgh orphan asylum. In 
the very first years of the nation he met, and 
became an ardent disciple of, John Chapman 
— Johnny Appleseed, and differed from him 
seriously on only two points, the Catholic 
Church, and hunting. Kelly's dearest devo- 
tion was re-reading St. Augustine's '*City of 
God," which he carried always in his hunter's 
pouch, by his powder horn. And Johnny Ap- 
pleseed 's dearest devotion was in reading and 
re-reading Swedenborg's ** Heaven and Hell," 
which he carried in his seed-sack. And Hun- 
ter Kelly would shoot deer, over whom Johnny 



42 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Appleseed would weep. So these two were 
separated when Kelly's lust for hunting was 
on him like the passion of mighty Nimrod. 
Then he would live through an almost vege- 
tarian period, travelling and planting with 
John Chapman — Johnny Appleseed, and lis- 
tening to his great monologues. 

They began together, exploring the prime- 
val forests near Pittsburgh. Each season they 
marched further west, returning in the fall to 
the cider mills of Western Pennsylvania, to 
beg and sort apple seeds for next spring's 
excursion beyond where any other white men 
fought or explored. Kelly and John Chapman 
parted at last where is now Fort Wayne in 
Northern Indiana. They said "goodbye" in 
great love and devotion, Kelly swearing on 
St. Augustine's "City of God" to plant in 
honor of Johnny Appleseed, a city like an 
apple tree, with its highest boughs in Heaven, 
and to begin by sowing there a special breed 
of apple seeds the saint gave him with his old 
leather seed-sack for a token- 
Kelly joined a group of settlers going fur- 
ther west of the same name, but no kin. He 
entered what was then known a^ the ' * Sanga- 
maw" Country with them and lived in their 
cabin a while. In this region he plantedt the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 43 

world's first orchards of Apple Amaranth 
trees, from the old leather sack. 

The first settlers were the Kellys, Mathe- 
neys and Elliots. The young sower of mys- 
teries lived alternately in their great log 
houses, and sat, at the end of his great 
wolf-hunts, by their open fireplaces. The 
chief of the local wolf -pack was the Devil, and 
refused to be slain. At last he took on his true 
form and came alone to Kelly when he stood 
meditating among the first sprouts of the 
famous Apple Amaranth Orchard, and there 
gave the young fellow words of admiration 
for his valor. For the Devil is often a true 
sport. 

There Kelly made a compact to submit him- 
self to torture for many years if the pioneer 
city of his vow to Johnny Appleseed might 
be built here. He and the Devil swore the 
compact on St. Augustine's ''City of God." 

The Devil pledged himself that if the young 
hunter's soul would submit itself to long suf- 
fering, the place could be evolved in time. Old 
Satan laughed, and said his little subordinate 
devils would then be guided to build better 
than they knew. The Devil did not carry Hun- 
ter Kelly to Hell, but devised a special tor- 
ment. He buried the mystic a few hundred 
feet below the orchard. In the hunter's living 



44 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

skull and heart were entangled the roots of 
the first Apple-Amaranth Trees, and from 
them all others of this region come. 

The Devil has a great respect for his con- 
tracts. Every year, for a century he dug up 
the mystic on Hallowe'en night, and showed 
him the city, and every time Kelly said: 
^'Take me back to my torture. The City is 
not yet started." At last, when the lads re- 
turned from the war with Germany, and the 
^irls returned from Red Cross work, and the 
like, in the summer of 1919, and the city be- 
gan to take on glory both visible and invisible. 
Hunter Kelly said to the Devil: ''I will now 
trust my town to go on. At last they are eat- 
ing of the Apple Amaranth, which they 
thought was poison. They are even trans- 
planting it." 

Thereupon Hunter Kelly drove the Devil 
away with the great pickaxe and spade, the 
same which had often dug the hunter from 
the. ground. 

From this pickaxe on, the story was entirely 
new to the screen, and much of it new to the 
audience. 

Kelly then built himself a cell in Heaven 
out of old and broken fragments of forgotten 
palaces in the far jungles. There he wrote 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 45 

The Golden Book for our little city far be- 
low. By day he lived as that boy of Spring- 
field who grew up as Saint Scribe of the 
Shrines, and established the discipline and 
ritual of The One Hundred Shrines of the 
World. He was rumored among a few of us 
to be the reincarnation of Hunter Kelly. He 
became the first teacher of St. Friend, who 
wore his mantle well after him. And now he 
is pictured, in many a dazzling flame-like 
color, throwing down from the window of his 
cell in heaven, this very hour of All Saint's 
Day, The Golden Book of Springfield. 

All this is the first intimation to Gwendolyn 
Charles that stranger things than we know 
may happen in heaven and on earth. As the 
wonder upon the screen moves on, with no 
formula of orthodox religion, and indeed with 
a sense of humor, like the laughter of the 
skies, she understands not what world she is 
in, and the lovely hedonist and artist is 
shaken with the passions of the mystic St. 
Catharine of Sienna. 

She is concerned to know that in the box of 
the projecting machine is a dazzling presence, 
a sort of giant fairy, a little larger than a man, 
an operator, indeed, one she has not hired. 
There is an orchestra of giant fairies, who 



46 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

play such tunes as blue bells should give forth 
in the wild woods. 

And meantime, according to her tale, the 
book is there, pictured on the screen, circling 
around the domes and towers of Rabbi Ter- 
ence Ezekiel's heretical synagogue on east 
Mason Street. And so the Rabbi makes haste 
to that place, and a few friends follow. But 
many people in the audience of quite different 
faiths declare that those are their own church 
steeples and not his temple towers, and hasten 
to the houses of their belief. Which is not so 
strange, to one who has been in a law court, 
for there it is demonstrated that a witness is 
somewhat apt to see and remember what he 
desires to see and remember. And so each 
finds the book where he has faith to find it. 

The Doubter is the next member of our club 
to testify and he tells of the midnight visions 
he has already described to me. 

He is reborn as Mayo Sims, physician of all 
the great saints and sinners in the town. In- 
cidentally he is the political ally of the Rock 
and Kopensky families, people obscure in 
1920, since they are but tenants on his farms, 
but in 2018 in the city government, along with 
the tribe of Cave Man Thomas and others. 

The physician tells first to me, then to the 
rest of the group of forecasters, that he has 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 47 

seen how the book with all its chronicles and 
exhortations, rituals and parables, is utterly 
rejected by the mass of the citizens of the 
Mystic Year. They refuse to let the pages 
draw conclusions for them from the past or 
move them with hopes for the future. Accord- 
ing to his tale the volume raises a faction of 
desperate malcontents, whose business, beside 
fomenting strikes, is to sing in a particularly 
nasal whine. Some of the rank and file of this 
group are shot down, after the city has en- 
dured five days of hideous ''racket," and 
more hideous vocal music. There is no magic 
ballad or hymn in the air. 

There is but one copy of the book, ** thanks 
be." It is full of sedition, and therefore ta- 
booed, but dog-eared from being much passed 
around in secret. To be sure it has a cheap 
gilt paper cover. It is captured and carried 
ten miles east of the city by certain friends of 
law and order, members of the Eock and Ko- 
pensky families, led by Cave Man Thomas. It 
is dropped into an abandoned coal-shaft. It 
goes down like lead. It has no wings. It was 
written by hair-brained sociologists, some of 
the wild ones from the absurd University of 
Springfield, not by "practical business men." 

It is not rescued from the shaft. The writ- 



48 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

ers of the work go back to their legitimate 
teaching, and are heard from never again. 

The Doubter goes on to give the genuine 
psycho-analytical data on most of the saints 
of Springfield at that time. These accounts 
are from his confidential records. For he 
treats the holy ones for all varieties of nerv- 
ous disorder, epilepsy, and the like. He is 
quite sure Christ and Mohammed were epi- 
leptics, and that settles it with all such fool- 
ishness. But perhaps you too have doubted. 

The Doubter's variety of revelation during 
double consciousness is not all certified by the 
man who dreams he becomes Cave Man 
Thomas. It is not quite Y. M. C. A. enough. 



CHAPTEE IV 

HISTORY OF THE MICHAELS FROM 1920 TO 2018 

As news spreads of The Prognosticator's 
Club, and of the remarkable tales and visions 
that are unfolded there, new men and women 
come to us, with the word that they, too, have 
a dream, persistent and recurring, of the 
Springfield of the next century. One such is 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael — whose father's 
story belongs here in our narrative. 

While many o-f the blacksmith shops of 
Springfield have slowly changed to garages, 
there is one in especial that has resisted the 
tide in a formidable way. It is the shop lo- 
cated on the southeast corner of Fifth Street 
and Capital Avenue. This place has kept 
most of the fancy horse-shoeing trade of the 
city in 1920. 

The aged proprietor-patriarch, **The Iron 
Gentleman," still does the heavy part of the 
work. He has, — with their own help, indeed, 
put three sons and three daughters through 
college, handsomely. He has trained his sons 
to his business and the extraordinary secrets 
of his shop, of which the whole tribe are in- 
ordinately proud. 

49 



50 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

In early youth he discovered the process of 
hammering out the old Damascus blades, and 
vastly improved upon it, and struck off a new 
type of sword for the world, and his work has 
remained in undeviating pattern and quality 
ever since. At his simple forge he hammers 
out those wonderful swords in plain sight of 
the passer-by or the detective from Europe. 
They cannot grasp the secret. He named 
his gift to the world, "The Avanel Blade." 
It is waspish and supple, all-conquering in 
body and soul. Sideways it can be wound 
like watch spring steel, or even a coil of nar- 
row ribbon. Edgewise it can cut more human 
flesh and bone than the heavy guillotine, it 
can cut straight through an iron or granite 
block of any thickness, as though it were 
cutting snow. In its standard form it is 
longer than the longest cavalry sword. It is 
the assumption of the strange old ' ' Iron Gen- 
tleman" that it will be used mostly by women, 
his descendants, and in battle f6r this land. 
Legend has it that the blade is named for a 
sweetheart who died in his youth. Certainly 
there is no living Avanel. He and his sons 
and daughters, all of them trained to his 
trade, have shod the horses of the notables of 
the country round, of more than one president 
of the United States, and of innumerable for- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 61 

gotten candidates for the presidency who be- 
gan their careers by ostentatiously going to 
his humble shop. 

His daughters are quite accomplished in 
light, ornamental iron work. They are well 
bred, high strung girls, and have the vital- 
ity of young tigers. These girls and their 
father are responsible for the most remark- 
able phenomenon of the streets of Springfield 
in 1917. Inspired by the Amazons of the Rus- 
sian Revolution, at the very beginning of that 
revolution, before it was declared a failure by 
the western world, they filled out an idea 
which had long been forming in their minds, 
and organized a troop of girl cavalry and 
offered it to the government for service 
against Germany. The girls were fully disci- 
plined and equipped at the time of the decla- 
ration of war. Their services were refused, 
and almost all of the girls went into the stere- 
otyped war work, many of them overseas. 
But now the whole body of troops is together 
again, riding our streets night and day, armed 
with the Avanel sword, and led, quite haugh- 
tily, by the Iron Gentleman's youngest daugh- 
ter. 

The brothers have organized a similar 
group of cavalry, armed with the same blade, 
and call it The Horse Shoe Brotherhood. 



62 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

But, of course, it has not attracted the same 
attention as the dazzling girls. The ^orse 
Shoe Brotherhood was not accepted by the 
government as a body. They enlisted, or were 
drafted, one at a time, in a conventional fash- 
ion. Many of the cavalry girls, following the 
example of the Michael women, are often 
gritty enough to shoe their own horses. 

The ''Iron Gentleman" is lean and ruddy, 
with a hooked and hatchet face. He has the 
habit of pointing his long, skinny fingers at 
the enemy he denounces, who may be present 
in imagination, or even in fact, while the ora- 
tory flows. Every street corner of Springfield 
is haunted with the legends of a series of 
fist fights in the boyhood biography of ''The 
Iron Gentleman," election scrimmages of his 
young manhood, and the like. It is said that 
at the interesting age of fourteen he broke 
half the street lamps of Springfield with well 
thrown cinders until one evening when he had 
his jacket thoroughly dusted by a most ener- 
getic father. He had several personal en- 
counters on the streets of Springfield in 
middle age, horsewhipping some hereditary 
enemy, or thwarting some hereditary enemy 
who threatened, imminently, to horsewhip 
him. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 53 

"The Iron Gentleman" is a savage only two 
or three days in the year in his old age. He 
tells his boys' and girls' children and grand- 
children, that they are to shoe horses and 
ideas forevermore, and send these ideas gal- 
loping across the world, sure footed; and his 
family are to keep on doing this, whether the 
town likes it or not. He tells them to hammer 
out swords perfectly tempered and to put 
their own souls on the anvil and hammer them 
till they are swords likewise, and to go forth 
and cut their way through the world, and 
bring back the heads of their enemies to 
Springfield and hang them in rows in front 
of their forges, whether the town likes it or 
not. 

"The Iron Gentleman" and his sons have 
revived the cult of boxing and bare fist fight- 
ing, and as a result there is many a black eye 
and bloody nose among both "delicate," 
and "muckers" of Springfield. We are as 
thoroughly damaged as German duelling stu- 
dents, though with not quite the same marks. 
And the boy scouts are getting battered up, 
and something must be done to put a stop 
to this. 

"The Iron Gentleman" and his two older 
sons have the forge-burned faces of black- 
smiths. But though the youngest excels in 



64 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

their accomplishments, he is more a brother 
of his father's cavalry-sword, the Damascus 
Blade. 

Like the rest he is tall and slender, but there 
is a difference. He hardly needs his father's 
gift to the world ; he is such a fencer with the 
shorter and more conventional blade. He 
looks like the flattering portraits of Louis 
Fourteenth of France, that were made in that 
monarch's youth. He has a great turn for 
pageantry, though with him it has taken a 
completely democratic phase. There is no 
sounder citizen in all his works and ways 
than this Joseph Bartholdi Michael. He has 
studied long under Thomas Wood Stevens, 
William Chauncey Langdon, and Percy Mac- 
kaye. And so he has established a pageantry 
calendar for the city which has been adopted 
by the City Commissioners, backed by the 
Chamber of Commerce, the Art Association, 
the Rotary Club, the Lion 's Club, and the Op- 
timist 's Club. 

He has somewhat mitigated the ** scrap- 
ping" of the boy scouts by evolving a code 
book of chivalry for them, and it endeavors 
to impart taboos, observances, and as well, 
honorifics for real merit. He ties up all these 
with the pomps of his calendar. He it is that 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 65 

imparts to his youthful followers a special 
consideration for the ladies, and reverence for 
their beauty. 

He fought at the Meuse-Argonne, was all 
through the battle of a little more than five 
weeks' length from September 26, 1918, on 
through hell and glory to November first, 
when the American First Army cut like magic 
swords through those four intricate systems 
of German defenses, that were spread out 
over those famous ten miles. On November 
the first he and many Springfield boys, in- 
cluding his tyo blacksmith brothers, were go- 
ing on like fate, like their own irresistible 
blades which they managed to carry into that 
long five weeks' battle. In all this Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the exquisite, was the 
dashing leader of his group, a private in the 
ranks, but from the beginning to the end, a 
sword. And they swept forward with the 
American First Army till the very end of 
hostilities on the eleventh of November. They 
did their full share of the work of that Ameri- 
can First Army, which, the experts say, took 
sixteen thousand prisoners, 468 guns, 2,664 
machines guns, 177 trench mortars, made an 
advance of 34 miles in 47 days and set free 
1,550 square kilometers of French ground and 
150 villages. 



56 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Indeed they took their due part in that 
battle which saved the world. 

It is at the end of this battle, at the dawn 
before Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, 
that Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the exquisite, 
has his vision of the year 2018. He dreams 
of leaving Springfield for a similar battle 
in Asia, with a far more uncertain out- 
come. He is about to go forth with The Horse 
Shoe Brotherhood and the Amazon Riders, 
armed one and all with the Avanel Sword, 
against the strange nation of the Singapo- 
rians, who are blasting the world with their 
demon ambition as did the Germans of 1914. 
And he bears the same name. He is known as 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, is an 
old man, with a pageant leader for a son: — 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third. 

Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, has 
reverted to an exaggeration of ''The Iron 
Gentleman." His son, on the other hand, 
is in 2018 an exquisite: almost gone to 
seed, a histrionic silly. Bartholdi Second 
that is to be, touches on the history of the 
clan for one hundred years, for the benefit of 
the Prognosticator's Club. On looking deeply 
into his dream he finds that his father is still 
known among the descendants as ''The Iron 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 67 

Gentleman." About 1925 the children and 
grandchildren took for their family flag the 
picture of six anvils, and above them six ham- 
mers. 

In the Mystic Year the cottages of these 
people are scattered in every quarter of the 
town, and the flag with the six anvils and six 
hammers flies in front of almost every cottage 
of a descendant, man or woman. The male 
descendants, of whatever name or high educa- 
tion, are blacksmiths and forge workers and 
makers of the Avanel blade, as are indeed 
many of the women. It seems to take the 
Michael hammer stroke to make that blade. 
With a few temporary exceptions, the men 
are busy horse-shoeing for the Amazons and 
making swords. 

And with the exception of a few too ex- 
quisite creatures like Joseph Bartholdi, III, 
the clan is not inbred. The greater part of the 
brains of the tribe is still in their legs and 
arms, not off in a separate compartment in 
their skulls. 

By dint of earnest cross-questioning, I get 
it from Joseph Bartholdi Michael, that he has 
been a figure in Illinois in dreams of 2000- 
2018. He has been the author in precocious 
youth of a book, entitled: ''Paper Made Na- 
tions," a treatise on the laws of flying ma- 



58 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

chine commerce, and it became the basis of the 
economic side of Black Hawk Boone's pet 
theory and way of life. 

According to the model, Joseph Bartholdi, 
in his reincarnation, has shod the horses 
of many a governor of Illinois and Presi- 
dent of the United States, and President 
of the World Government. This husky, 
distinguished democracy combines with the 
prestige of his precocious book to make him 
the most distinguished representative of 
the teeming 2018 Middle West, in the 
World Government. He champions there the 
ceremonies and honors due the International 
Flag with the loyalty to what they like 
and a sense of the depths of pageantry, that 
has distinguished the Michael following from 
the beginning. Portia, the Singing Aviator, 
has in the generation of the Mystic Year, writ- 
ten the local song about * ' The Patchwork Flag 
of Michael and the World." And she calls it 
in the same song: ** Joseph's Coat of Many 
Colors" or *'The Flag of Joseph's Coat" in 
allusion to his fashion of almost draping it 
around him, with the Star Spangled Banner, 
when he is speaking on high occasions, on 
international issues. 

Instead of an exquisite, he is lean, wiry, 
with a hooked and hatchet face, burned, 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 59 

cooked, in the forge. He finds he has the habit 
of pointing his long, skinny fingers at the 
enemy he denounces. He finds that, like his 
progenitor, *'The Iron Gentleman," he has a 
record of putting things through with sheer 
fury when there is no other weapon handy. 

He tells the Prognosticator's Club, that, 
through the century, the flag with the six 
hammers and the six anvils has been smeared 
by renegades. But the proud truth-speaking 
custom has tortured the whole clan till some 
one has risen to confess the sins of the name, 
and start new. 

And the Michaels have been hated off and 
on for a whole century because of these 
things, and because they were always hating 
some one, even without cause. They were apt 
to be jealous of other vigorous citizens, con- 
sidering themselves the sole saviors of the 
principle of defiant democracy. But all the 
century the leading Michaels have seemed to 
be saying: ''A town well hammered into 
shape is better than fortune or fame." Few 
Michaels were guilty of living a private and 
secluded existence. 

Few maidens were crowned with lovelier 
hair or carried themselves with finer mien 
than the granddaughters and great grand- 
daughters of the * ' Iron Gentleman. ' ' The stock 



60 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

has gone on in beauty and strength through the 
vision of a century. Yet in 2018 it seems that 
the scepter is just a little departing from the 
younger generation. It is not that they are 
ousted from public office. The fearless voice 
of a Michael always counts most as a private 
citizen, and, whenever Joseph Bartholdi Mi- 
chael, the Second, returns from The World 
Government, he takes his place in the Horse 
Shoe Brotherhood as a private in the ranks 
beside his son Joseph Bartholdi, the Third, 
and it is their full intention, according to 
hereditary political habit, to ride against 
Singapore, when the time is ripe, as privates 
in the ranks. 

But a new clan has come up from Cairo, 
Illinois, led by Black Hawk Boone. Many of 
their young girls look more like young Indian 
maids from a government reservation school, 
than people of Caucasian stock. But, for all 
that, they have their own original ways of 
delicate manner and address, most disconcert- 
ing to the fixed limits of Springfield 's conven- 
tionality. They are rather short and heavy- 
set. Their merry young men and middle-aged 
men have, most of them, long, curly black 
lovelocks to the shoulders, not carefully 
combed, and nearly all defiantly wag big black 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 61 

beards in every argument, when all other men 
in the modern world are shaved clean. 

They cheerfully hate the blacksmith clan 
which they are ousting by a greater talent for 
fury, preaching, and cursing, and by having 
just a little more brain at the back of the neck. 

The town wits say these clans hate each 
other because, on the whole, they are so 
much alike, and always vote the same way at 
a crisis. The locks of both the Boone men and 
women stream back over their shoulders, and 
their left hands are dyed crimson as a proud 
perpetual reminder to themselves and all the 
world that among their ancestors were 
aborigines. 

But America has not suffered the regime of 
nigh two hundred years of baseball umpires : — 
and presidential elections accepted by Novem- 
ber 15 by the defeated party, without a dis- 
position to be good sports on the part of self- 
respecting clans like these. And so it comes 
about to stir the romantic soul of the town 
that the Avanel Blade of the ''Iron Gentle- 
man" of 1920 has become a woman in 2018, 
but a woman no kin to the Michaels. In 2018 
Horse Shoe Brotherhood and Michael Ama- 
zons are under one commander, the lovely 
Lady Avanel Boone, and, though they be 
armed with the Avanel Blade indeed, she 



62 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

scores a point in family pride and makes them 
swear fealty on Daniel Boone's old hunting 
knife, which she carries in her belt as a token 
of her Kentucky forbears. 

And now, as the son of the ''Iron Gentle- 
man" tells the story, it comes as a clouded 
vision before me, as though I were half in the 
vision and beginning a destiny of my own. 

It is the snowy morning of All Saint's 
Day, 2018, the Michael Clan and a general 
assembly of Springfield people are at the 
crossing of Fifth Street and Capital Avenue, 
and by the ancestral forge on the southeast 
corner. The fire is burning high and the bel- 
lows is roaring. The horse of the conquering 
Avanel Boone is to be shod by that good sport 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, who 
has just returned from the World Government 
to take his modest place in the ranks of her 
following. And then there are these curly 
haired, black browed, black bearded rascals 
to whom all Michaels must be polite, and these 
Red-Indian looking girls and boys, Avanel 's 
innumerable adoring cousins who are publicly 
admiring her with hectic words and kissing 
her with sugar sweetness and honest family 
idolatry. There is a touch of the uncanny, the 
restless, the Ishmaelite about all these Boones, 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 63 

they have no business in the streets of a town. 
They look like dressed-up wood-choppers, all 
but that trim Avanel. 

While the snow is blowing into the shop, 
white-haired Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the 
Second, has taken the old shoes from the 
dainty feet of the white pony, and, just as 
he is lifting a new shoe from the fire and the 
flames leap up, there is a music incredibly 
sweet, and with a great whirring of wings 
and terrible thunder ''The Book" flies out 
of the fire, and circles above these two clans. 
Avanel with eyes fixed and strained in won- 
der, follows it on her unshod horse. The Book 
settles into her arms, and I see her sit above 
the company like a fairy in a trance, and read 
with adoring voice from the snow white book 
while the assembled clans and all the citizens 
gather close to hear. 

The first pages of the volume give in jewel- 
led and flaming letters a new charter and con- 
stitution for the World Government, based on 
the life and teaching of Springfield's death- 
less citizen, Abraham Lincoln. 

There is in the air an exquisite song and 
around the consecrated Avanel a glory ineffa- 
ble, for she is the High Priestess of The Book 
for her people. The song in the air praises 
her, and urges her, and all those she com- 



6i THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

mands, to valor for the Heavenly Star Span- 
gled Banner and the Heavenly International 
Flag. And the song whispers that the book, 
in many strange forms, will appear in many 
a green field of our middle west this day, in 
many a pulpit and many a lonely mourner's 
house to give life and eternal light. 

But, as my neighbor from the blacksmith 
shop of 1920 tells the tale more slowly, the 
vision turns to mere words again, and then to 
dust and ashes. And I myself seem but ashes 
on the winds of time. 

The histories of the future in the Prognos- 
ticaior's Club are no more contradictory than 
the accounts our fathers give of the leading 
events of the Civil War. 

Everywhere South of Mason and Dixon's 
line they say that Grant surrendered to Lee. 
It is in every southern school book. When we 
look into history we are made dizzy by cloud 
and flame. And we shall still be partizans in 
the highest Heaven. There are many earthly 
languages. There are many heavenly lan- 
guages. There are many blazing, blinding to- 
morrows. But they all lead to the same glori- 
ous»tomorrow at last. 

The Prognosticators are a dithyrambic, 
chanting, improvising howling dervish set, 
with a certain gense of humor among all these 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 65 

blinding lights, which is but to say they have 
elasticity of soul and mind. 

Many of the Michael Clan of Springfield, of 
1920, returned soldiers, Red Cross nurses, and 
other workers, saw kindred visions of the 
Flying Book of Springfield blazing above the 
trenches at midnight for their comfort, while 
voices in the air sang them stories of home. 

Reader, in your town many like these are 
brooding alone over unaccountable vistas of 
the future of their city, that have come to 
them in battle or by the fireside or in the 
storm. They have found themselves standing 
momently at cross streets of vision, before 
they felt their hearts to be as dust again. Call 
them together. Blow ashes into flame. Start 
a brotherhood of your own. Live in the New 
City that is revealed to you, as we are living 
in our City and in the streets of our Tomor- 
row. 



CHAPTER V 

r ENTER INTO THE NEW SPRINGFIELD OE 2018. I AM 

SNUBBED BY AVANEL, SHE RELENTS, SHOWING ME 

MANY PANORAMAS OF NEW SPRINGFIELD. WE 

CONFESS TO HAVING THE SAME DREAM OF 

DEVIL'S GOLD. 

But it is not after the noble manner of these 
others that I enter at last into the vision of 
2018. 

There is deep darkness, and time passing 
by without end, and shade. There is the fear 
of the moles that will not leave me alone, who 
make nests of alien dust, beneath my ribs. 
And my bones crumble through the century, 
like last year's autumn leaves. Then there is, 
alternating with drouth, bitter frost. And 
roots wrap my heart and brain. And there is 
sleep. 

Then a galloping and gay shrieking, 
away on the road, to the East of Oak Ridge I 
And though I am six feet beneath the ground 
the eyes of the soul are given me. I see won- 
derful young horsewomen out on that Great 
Northwest Road and the ancient clay between 
me and that cavalcade turns to air and to 

66 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 67 

light. And I am asking myself as the Girl 
Leader goes by like a meteor: ''Am I coming 
up again through the earth as weed or flame 
or man ? If I rise from this grave, I am com- 
ing but to praise her, if I may. ' ' 

There is deep darkness again, and sleep, 
and when next I awake I am in the midst of a 
terrible March rain, and I run for refuge into 
Dodd's Drug Store. It is the old Fifth and 
Monroe corner. I buy the early afternoon Reg- 
ister from a bawling newsboy. It is dated 
March first, 2018. Soon the storm abates a 
little, but it is a freezing, thawing, wind- 
whistling, late afternoon. It is dusk, and I am 
walking South on what was once Third Street, 
but is now Mulberry Boulevard, with the Chi- 
cago and Alton railroad long gone. And I am 
with that girl who awakened me, Avanel 
Boone, and there is no poetry about it at all. 
It is obvious by the air with which she takes 
possession of me and hustles me down that 
rain and sleet-scourged avenue, that she con- 
siders herself the heroine of my story. But 
dear me, what stubborn material for a hero- 
ine. Here, after a century, woman is the same 
she always was. 

To put it in restrained phrases she is, in her 
disposition, like the weather. She scolds me 



68 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

for the unpressed state of my clothes, and my 
mussed hair, and my lack of air of distinction. 
She says I have slept in my clothes so much 
that they are in a perfectly abused condition. 

I admit that I have not consulted a tailor 
for some little time. She- says I carry myself 
as though I were a ditch digger or were fol- 
lowing the plough, instead of walking with a 
lady. She lashes me for what she alleges 
are my ridiculous ideas, and goes over the 
catalogue till it is impossible to enjoy the 
panorama that I glimpse through the bracing 
sleet and rain, and I scarcely care to look at 
her, the little devil, — though she is to be my 
heroine. 

The only flattering thing about the en- 
counter is the air of settled proprietorship of 
this young lady. 

At length there is silence and I chase along 
meekly beside her under the umbrella, and 
cool down, and do her the honor to look her 
over as well as I can in the storm. Her face is 
half hidden by her flapping waterproof cape 
and we are walking under tremendous shade 
trees. I note her chin quite high in the air, her 
spirited profile set straight forward, and her 
cheeks, with color that goes like a blown-out 
flame and then comes again like a heart-beat. 

March 2, 2018; — I am again in my New City. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 69 

I begin the day by reading the Illinois State 
Journal of March 2; it is the same paper as 
of old. I note the advertisements of laundries, 
screen factories, cleaners and dyers, apple 
merchants, dealers in hats and caps, dealers 
in hay, grain and feed, places for the purchase 
of fish, game and oysters, poultry and eggs, 
etc. I note ladies' furnishing establishments, 
retail dry goods stores, bakeries, headquar- 
ters for cash registers, meat markets, the es- 
tablishments of upholsterers, places where 
may be found parcel delivery messengers, 
lists of dealers in flour and feed, various ad- 
vertisements of baggage and transfer com- 
panies, dealers in wall paper, paints, oils and 
varnish, and everything in advertisements in 
the Journal to convince me that this is the 
same old paper, and the same old capital city. 
Yet I am endowed with new powers. I go 
about the streets as a sort of a millennial 
chameleon. I find myself wearing various 
bodies. First I am but myself, kneeling be- 
fore the Image of the Virgin, in the church 
of St. Peter and St. Paul. In an hour I am a 
City Hall stenographer, in the office of the 
Mayor, This Mayor is referred to in the Jour- 
nal as ' ' Slick Slack Kopensky. ' ' Later in the 
morning I am clerk for Justice of the Peace 
John Boat, whose office is right by the jail. 



70 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

And both the jail and the office stairs have the 
same old skunk smell that has distinguished 
jails and the stairs of justice from the begin- 
ning. Later, in the afternoon, I am an emer- 
gency messenger for the Japanese depart- 
ment of the World's Fair of the University 
of Springfield, and am, to all appearances, a 
Japanese. I find myself wearing the clothes 
and shoes of these various supernumeraries, 
and in my double consciousness, knowing 
their affairs all through, as though I had 
lived in their frames twenty years. Yet no 
matter whose body I seem to wear or whose 
tongue I seem to be wagging, I step back into 
the same yokel when, once in the morning, and 
once in the afternoon, between these episodes 
I find myself cowering in the presence of 
Comrade Avanel. It is a cloudy, foggy day, 
and fog seems to come between us whenever 
I try to look at her. In the morning I win 
her hard consent to take yesterday's walk, 
again, and she promises not to scold me, only 
flinging out the assertion that I am a diamond 
in the rough and that it is her business to 
polish me : — a statement I seem to have heard 
before somewhere. 

In the afternoon she behaves, and the fog 
blows away after a while and I am able to 
enjoy the vision of this proud quivering young 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 71 

body and soul. From beneath the bantam- 
rooster air emerges a little glimpse of the 
sibyl. 

For all her tailor-made smartness, she is 
like the Indian, and walks unimpeded as 
though in moccasins. Her hair is black and 
long and straight, and today her fashion plate 
profile is changed to something more native 
American. Yet her skin is so white and her 
cheeks are so red, and the flush comes and 
goes so fast, the Indian illusion has com- 
pletely disappeared when she turns her face 
to me. Her changing elusive face has a haunt- 
ing kinship to the countenance of my favorite 
and adored image of the virgin that has been 
for much more than a century to the north of 
the high altar of the church of St. Peter and 
St. Paul, where I have been again meditating 
this very morning. And I try to tell her that 
she is a more earthly younger sister of this 
virgin, but indeed of the same tribe and house 
of saints. 

"When she bows her head in what may be 
dreaming, there is to my foolish imagination 
a hint of Pallas Athena about the action. 
"When she lifts her head, and looks me full in 
the face all the upper part of her countenance 
is definitely a feminized portrait of Shelley, 
and she wears those curls hiding either ear 



72 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

after the smartest fashion of 2018. They are 
called the Harriet Beecher Stowe curls, and 
copied from those in the most frequent por- 
trait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, when she was 
a dazzling young woman. I try to tell Avanel 
how her beauty seems, but my speeches are 
not eloquent and my heroine is neither poetess 
nor prophetess in her replies. She says "I 
cannot be all of those creatures. Your figures 
contradict. ' ' 

I answer: ''Step into my hall of mirrors, 
and you will discover yourself to be all I have 
said, and a devil in the bargain." 

She drifts to speaking of her father, born 
in southern Illinois, descendant on one side 
from Daniel Boone, and on another from a 
Kentucky Indian chief of long ago. For the 
first time that high throaty snobbish manner- 
ism and affected even tone disappear from 
her voice, and she speaks as a human creature 
should. She cannot be a society chatterbox 
when discussing her clan. 

She goes on to tell how her mother came of 
two long lines of Springfield Catholics. And 
I gather, as Avanel talks on and on, and I 
piece it out from dim memories that float 
about the back of my head, that two lines of 
her mother *s house were the one Irish, and 
the other Lithuanian, and that long ago this 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 73 

woman was the most famous dancer of The 
Gordon Craig Theatre. She died in Avanel's 
fifteenth year. And it seemed in the local 
fitness of things for the little girl with the 
same talent to go forward bearing the same 
responsibilities as soon as she could carry 
them, dancers coming to their own early, if 
they ever have a place. She was soon the head 
of all those who could make Springfield's de- 
votional ideals clear and appealing, through 
those inherited rituals. Avanel and her group 
have danced for the Churches at Christmas 
and other times, and, in the history of her art 
most important of all, the festivals of Johnny 
Applesed, and of St. Scribe and Hunter 
Kelly. And now I begin to remember with 
her some of those occasions as through rifts 
of cloud. 

Now Avanel says she does not want me to be 
seen in the audience where she gives a relig- 
, ious dance. She is angry with herself and me, 
[ because she is herself flattening out so, after 
ij talking on religious matters. But I am philo- 
sophical about this young woman, today, and 
look about at what we are passing. 

"We stare silently into the windows at add- 
ing machines, mantels, grates, and tiles. We 
pass a wholesale house for barber supplies, 



74 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

and Avanel says I need a hair cut. "We pass 
the business houses of feather-renovators and 
dealers, of dealers in safes and locks, and 
rubber stamps. I note aloud in passing that 
Avanel has many rubber stamp ideas and 
needs to alter them if she would do justice to 
her glorious face. She answers not. "We walk 
on. We pass through a wholesale region, and 
while the fog still conceals the towers of the 
town and comes lower, we can look into the 
windows yet, and I note that this is not as in 
the century before. Almost every wholesaler 
lias a dazzling insignia and coat of arms. This 
is true for instance of the manufacturing ma- 
chinists and millwrights, the headquarters for 
tempering and dies. It is true, even, of the 
dealers in sand and gravel, the tinners and 
slate roofers, the transfer and trucking com- 
panies, the brick and tile manufacturers, the 
soda water manufacturers, the pump manu- 
facturers, the cigar manufacturers, the leather 
and belting men, and many others that to me 
were most commonplace of old. But their 
window displays are as the throne rooms of 
knighthood. 

March 3: — Mist and darkness of soul are 
clearing away. And I am welcomed in my 
real and permanent aspect in the streets 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 75 

of the New Springfield, by many fellow citi- 
zens that it appears I have known for long. 
I am to them also the yokel Avanel thinks 
me to be, and I meet with many covert smiles. 
It seems I have returned after years of 
art study in New York, and it is the first 
time many of them have seen me for quite 
awhile. I am welcomed back to town a 
slightly boresome but harmless cousin. But 
everyone calls his worst enemy cousin, as in 
a Kentucky village. Young Jim Kopensky 
asks in a cousinly manner why I start art 
classes here, if I had any kind of prospects in 
New York, rather implying that I am here 
because I have nowhere else to go. He takes 
up a strain remarkably like that of Avanel, 
and insists that I failed with the great metro- 
politan oracles of art because of uncreased 
trousers, and merely stares with incredulity 
when I insist that their trousers are often un- 
creased, and some of them dress like rag 
bags. Despite many similar greetings, I in- 
wardly vow to start my art classes anyhow, 
and I spend a morning having a most fra- 
ternal chat with Sparrow Short. He is re- 
touching a portrait of Mara of Singapore, 
painted several years ago when she was a 
young girl, and the political issue between 



76 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Singapore and America was not so keen. 
Short is determined to exhibit it at the August 
opening of The World's Fair of the Uni- 
versity of Springfield. In this picture I behold 
her in her glory, a premature creature of thir- 
teen, a Singaporian Juliet, Short says **more 
hectic in her aspect than she is now. At the 
present she is an exceedingly cool panther." 
The days Short painted this portrait, she was 
deeply reading the most inflaming Singapo- 
rian romance, and in the portrait it flashes 
recklessly from her, and her eyes and mouth 
are round with the thought of the loves of 
the lost gods, who flourished before the pro- 
5)het of the Cocaine Buddha of Singapore 
killed them all in the jungle. She is dressed 
in green silk and in her hands is a great green 
feather fan. Short is painting out certain 
league white blossoms on a bush in the back- 
ground and turning them to green buds^ for 
Mara has imperiously demanded it. 

I am living near the studio of Sparrow 
Short, in one of the old houses of Springfield 
on South Fourth Street which existed in my 
previous life, and where once lived a dear 
friend of mine. 

Everything in the eld house is disposed and 
ordered as formerly, and it is only when I 
step out on the front lawn and pass under 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 77 

a certain mulberry tree that I seem to be in 
the New Springfield. 

I pass under this tree. I walk a little way 
to the house of Avanel, and we saunter 
abroad. And the fogs are blowing away and 
she is in a most amiable mood, and I am able 
to note that our city is indeed a flying, flutter- 
ing place. 

Confectioneries, auto trucks, popcorn vans, 
pleasure machines, and the passing crowds 
are decked with ribbons and streamers. 
Many families have a flag pole in the front 
yard with a row of tiny ancestral flags, one 
over the other, each indicating some form of 
skilled or unskilled manual labor by which 
the ancestors of the house made their way, 
and it is considered a disgrace to display any 
other type of ancestral flag, but one which 
shows some form of manual labor. 

But many staffs have only three flags, that 
of the town, that of the International Govern- 
ment, and above these, the Star Spangled 
Banner. These people pride themselves in 
being more democratic, and not parading 
their ancestry. Nearly all business houses, 
particularly the large and wholesale houses, 
have their own especial banners and bunting, 
and some give out toy balloons and the like to 
the children, marked with the same schemes. 



78 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

The Star Spangled Banner is above every- 
thing, even on the International buildings, to 
indicate that the United States has the old 
South Carolina privilege of secession from 
the World Federation, whenever she pleases. 
And so I am walking with Avanel, on the 
late afternoon of March third, 2018. We find 
ourselves very near the center of the group 
of slender Sunset Towers. Seven of them are 
of the seven colors of the rainbow, one for 
each color, placed in a circle around the Truth 
Tower, which is in the very center of the 
star-plan system of boulevards. We climb 
the Truth Tower and look about. The Truth 
Tower is also called The Edgar Lee Masters 
Tower, and it is high above the rest. At the 
foot of it is the circular green with Golden 
Rain-Trees from New Harmony, Indiana. This 
is called the Edgar Lee Masters Park. Near 
by is the Lincoln Memorial Park, containing 
the marked sites of Lincoln's three law offices, 
and in the center our first State House, now 
the Lincoln museum. On the sides of all the 
Sunset Towers that one may see from the 
old public square is spread the Red Star 
of Springfield, set in the White Star of Illi- 
nois. Searchlights blaze through it, spreading 
red and white light. Outside the white Truth 
Tower that soars above all the city, and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 79 

outside its rainbow circle of campaniles, the 
ninety-two other campaniles shimmer in the 
sun, their hues ranging from grey to rose- 
grey, and grey-gold to rose-gold. And they 
grow wilder in the red, black and white 
gorgeousness of the night. 

The fifty towers on the outermost circle are 
the newest. They are the only separate build- 
ings of the World 's Fair of the University of 
Springfield, except one long street called 
* * The Street of Past History, ' ' which is about 
a mile to the south beginning at Bunn Park 
and sweeping toward the northwest in a 
quarter of a circle to the high hill of Wash- 
ington Park. Every building in the city is 
officially a part of the fair and in theory at 
least, the City is the Fair. 

It is late in the evening, and I am with 
Avanel on top of the Truth Tower, and she is 
relenting, not so much toward me, as toward 
her town. It is the first time she has taken 
in the panorama, since the last circle of towers 
was completed and The Street of Past History 
illuminated. 

"I must admit," she says, "the civic patri- 
otism of two most unfashionable persons. Old 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, who is 
away now at the legislature of the World Gov- 



80 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

eminent, is the head of our whole architec- 
tural project. He is something of a Smart Set 
person, and is in fact an old West Pointer. But 
the real work was done by the most unpopular 
Thibetan Boy and the architectural planning 
and imagining was by the negro John Emis. 
Old Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, 
has lent his name to protect these people, 
and leave them unmolested in their project. 
As it is, he turns his appropriation over to 
them. The city would not give either of such 
a salary. It will give the Thibetan Boy a little 
credit, when all is over, but John Emis none 
at all, because he is a negro. When you go 
down into the streets again you will find a 
black stripe tucked away in some odd corner 
of the design of every building in The Street 
of Past History. If you look you will see 
that same stripe now, on the outer circle 
of towers. It goes slenderly around the fourth 
story and the tenth. That black stripe is the 
personal secret signature of John Emis, the 
negro architect." 

The voice of this woman beside me alters 
to that gentle and human tone in which she 
spoke of her mother, as though this city, toa, 
has its hand somewhat on her heart. Yet she 
is proud and almost barks at me when I at- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 81 

tempt any kind of understanding, and to her 
I am not of this city, and my sole excuse for 
living is that I admire her, and therefore must 
be forgiven every other trait in my character 
till she has time to mend my ways. My scalp 
must dangle at her belt. 

*'I begin to be almost reconciled to living 
in Springfield, ' ' she muses, ' ' Springfield is all 
society, you know, and it is hopeless to try 
to make it anything else. Of course there are 
some places where it pays to have ideas, but 
here a g^irl must conceal ideas if she has 
them." 

Then, in an instant, another Avanel seems 
to flash forth. ''You think I am a snob and 
a fool, you silly art student, but I would die 
for the International Flag far sooner than 
people like your idol Sparrow Short. ' ' 

Avanel points out to me old Camp Lincoln, 
northwest, beyond the towers. There she 
leads the Amazonian Cavalry and the Horse- 
shoe Brotherhood in bi-weekly drill, in prep- 
aration for the possible war against Singa- 
pore. Looming like the dome of the Taj Mahal 
above the trees is a gigantic world globe, 
which marks the center of the field. Around 
this shining map of everything her drills 
are held. 



82 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

But I answer her cut : * ' Sparrow Short is 
no idol of mine, and you know it. I regard 
him as the best teacher of art in Springfield, 
but I do not accept his international views." 

''It seems to me," she gives reply, ''that 
you are always finding excuses for dubious 
revolutionaries, whose spirits and bodies are 
rag bags." 

About nine in the evening, there are star- 
chimes from all the towers. The bells are 
singing the song of Portia, the aviator: — 
"Look up at the far-off suns, Oh hearts of 
eternal desire." 

Avanel speaks to me in a swearing tone of 
voice: "I think I cut fewer people than you 
do. I should not be elected the head of the 
Amazons if I were a fool about exclusiveness. 
As a matter of fact I cut those who go 
to the parties of Mara, the daughter of the 
Man from Singapore. It is plain she gets 
those people under her roof to poison them 
against the world government or at least 
muffle their suspicions of her father's doings 
and the doings of his like. You are the only 
person who thinks I cut loyal patriotic 
people. ' ' 

I am wondering why I like this Avanel. I 
conclude it is because of her overwhelming 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 83 

vanity and unbreakable pride. She has the 
soul of a thousand peacocks and there is a 
potential lioness in her beside. 

She clasps her hands and looks silently over 
the city, her eyes wide and leaping with de- 
light over the glory of the illumination. I say 
to Avanel: ''My Fathers have been long in 
the grave, and my own dust has long been 
buried in other dust. I walk with you, only 
because my heart loved you, one hundred 
years ago. ' ' But she does not understand me 
in the least, when I talk in this fashion. 

March 4: — It is such an established custom 
among the young people of 2018 to watch the 
sunset from the great uninterrupted glass 
spaces of the upper halls of these sunset 
towers that there may be found the most 
famous cafeterias of the town. We dine at 
the top of one of them. There with gay sing- 
ing the young democracy, and the young cocks 
of the walk as well, linger and wait till long 
past the afterglow. This evening the haughty 
Avanel consents to take dinner with me, that 
she may reprove me once more, seeing that, in 
general, my name is mud, however I may try 
to improve. 

The catalogue of her hoity-toity friends 
rolls on forever and I can only protest by say- 



84 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

ing that while these are undeniably good citi- 
zens, they are all sisters, cousins, aunts and 
uncles of those who are invited to Mara's 
parties, and thus quite near to treason. 

But now the town choir sings the civic 
hymn from a tower near by: — *' Springfield 
Awake, Springfield Aflame ' * and all the young 
people about join in the chorus, and as Avanel 
sings devoutly she cannot help but be the 
other self whose existence she tries to deny. 

March 7: — I am dining again in the tower 
cafeteria with Avanel, a quite early dinner, 
and while the afterglow still blazes we look 
down upon the clustered cottages of our town. 
They are, in design, dominated by the so- 
called ** Violet Curve," a complex rhythm, 
which is magnified from the whorls of the 
violet petals, and the cottages are generally 
violet in hue. Some of the roofs and cupolas 
are beginning to be gilded. Springfield ex- 
tends over the whole county through the tak- 
ing in of countless groves, orchards, and 
aviation fields. 

Not only in their special groves, but every- 
where titan Amaranth Apple vines rise on 
trellises high above the other trees, for this 
famous Amaranth is a kind of a tree-vine 
that is in the f^ thick with red and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 85 

white blossoms and clusters of red apples. 
There are many parks in the New Springfield 
that were not in the old Springfield: Rankin, 
Sandburg, Humphrey, Roberts, Joyce Kilmer, 
Masters, Untermeyer, and others. Avanel 
points out the public schools beneath us, often 
rebuilt on the old sites or near them, and bear- 
ing the same names. Ancient streets keep 
their names, except where boulevards have 
replaced them. 

East of Tenth Street is the Negro district, 
all new, beautiful, flamboyant jungle houses, 
constructed for his people by John Emis, and 
through his influence not one slack old build- 
ing remains, though, ''most of them still hold 
slack colored people," Avanel says. These 
houses are far richer than the towers and 
other buildings of the World's Fair, for only 
here in Africa has John Emis an unrestrained 
hand. 

March 8: — Avanel, with a view to my 
further chastisement, takes me about, scold- 
ing again, and we encounter a row of gro- 
tesques on great pedestals, which she confes- 
ses were put up by a group of young Boones 
who came from near Cairo, led by her father 
in his more fiery youth, when the Boones had 
by no means so strong a hold on the city. 



86 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

They are in Liberty Park, near Concordia 
College, whose golden pinnacles glitter 
through the bare limbs of the trees. On 
the central pedestal of the grotesques is in- 
scribed: *'To the cornerstones of the town; 
to the newspaper and motion picture and 
stage censors; to the respectables, the lady 
bountifuls, the 90-called senior families; to the 
Sons and Daughters of the American Revo- 
lution; to the Sons and Daughters of the An- 
cient Democrats, and the Sons and Daughters 
of the Ancient Republicans; and in general, 
to the dragon-quack worm of respectability, 
that dieth not." Avanel says these were put 
up the day the ''Boone Ax" newspaper was 
founded. 

On the central pedestal, which is higher and 
more massive than the rest, crawling down 
from the top, is a dragon with a duck 's head. 
On the top of the other pedestals are the stone 
images of a fretful ape, an enormous frog, a 
long nosed ant eater, a laughing idiot, a hawk, 
a goat, a three-legged bull dog wearing a plug 
hat, a chicken without feathers, and a hog 
wearing trousers. 

I say, on looking at these: "Avanel, I de- 
sire to meet your father, the honorable Black 
Hawk Boonev T darkly suspect he is one of 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 87 

those who go about in unpressed clothes 
and will doubtless furnish me with words to 
say to you. I should say that the daughter 
of such a father should be willing to dye her 
left hand crimson, for him, proudly." 

Avanel answers with a tearful solemnity, 
positively babyish: — ''If you truly love me 
you will not use my father against me. While 
I respect him, I cannot respect all his clan and 
ideas and I am even more vexed over his way 
of mixing with mussy people. If I must have 
that kind of thing, I go to the saint who does 
it for religion and not from philosophy. I 
want you to meet St. Friend." 

March 10 : — Late this evening I buy a sack 
of popcorn and walk about the shopping dis- 
trict alone, eating the well-buttered corn from 
my pocket, and swinging my cane, and ob- 
serving the beauty of the ladies as they go 
into the theatre with their escorts. Many of 
them remind me of girls I used to eye with 
breathless reverence in Springfield. I am glad 
to wonder over beauty without being vexed 
with it, and I stand in the shadow, inwardly 
defying Miss Avanel. And having defied her 
about an hour, I call at nine o'clock, feeling 
perfectly emancipated, and tell her the follow- 
ing story: — 



88 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

''Avanel, last night we went abroad into 
Dreamland together, hand in hand and heart 
in heart, looking with equal guilt for the 
Golden Pool of the Handsome Medicine Man, 
Devil's Gold. It was way past midnight when 
we found him, in the midst of the black 
prairies of Dreamland I well , know. He 
was making his medicine, and dishonor- 
ing our souls, by calling our names across the 
plain. We did not flinch. We walked straight 
to his yellow campfire, and looked into his 
gilded face and admired his yellow blanket, 
and right by his fire we satisfied our wicked 
desire by admiring ourselves in his golden 
pool. 

''Our faces were close together, and as we 
looked into the pool, we saw ourselves in a 
mundane world, so perfect that its material- 
ism became magical. 

"We walked down through the pool, as 
though into an underground house, and we 
looked into each others faces again. And we 
were moving, gilded images from head to feet, 
and we were satisfied with each other at last, 
and I knew I wanted you to be gilded as 
much as you desired me to.be so, and we took 
the wickedest pleasure in looking upon the 
yellow world around us. ' ' 

"Yes," said Avanel, "I walked there with 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 89 

you in my dream last night, and I hope we 
will walk in houses of holiness together and 
.1 am sorry we walked in the pool of gold. 
Come with me to St. Friend." After that, 
Avanel is more of a Christian. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TWO FACTIONS :— MAYOR SLICK SLACK KOPENSKT 

AND HIS BOSS, MAYO SIMS; VERSUS BOONE, 

PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF 

EDUCATION. 

April 3, 2018 : — It is a sunny April morning. 
I note some tiny spring beauties in the patches 
of snow. Every cloud threatens, but every 
cloud rolls by. I begin to apprehend April's 
pretty promise of final deliverance from frost 
and snow. I am loafing around the coffee 
houses, listening to the talk, and being re- 
ceived as one of the more obscure inhabitants. 
Occasionally some one asks, with an effort at 
interest, if I am starting my art classes soon. 
But the most lofty and the most humble call 
me "cousin," as they do one another. I am 
sounded a bit as to whether I share the polit- 
ical opinions of Sparrow Short, and inci- 
dentally if we belong to the same school of 
art teaching, and if he will give my classes a 
criticism from time to time. I write down the 
name of the youth who seeks me out desiring 
to enroll and am for the first time flattered. 

By putting fugitive bits of loud talk with 

90 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 91 

observations of the last few mornings, I begin 
to get the social fabric, and take a lesson in 
New Springfield's politics. 

More women vote than men. Woman is 
the housekeeper and municipal politics is a 
kind of nest building and a house keeping of 
a sort. 

The women follow their old occupations. 
And they have many new ones. They are lock- 
smiths, safe experts, confectioners, cigar fac- 
tory workers and owners, makers of adver- 
tising novelties for the whole world, eye, ear, 
nose and throat physicians, bill posters, wall- 
paper cleaners, opticians, dog, cat, and bird 
doctors, barbers, undertakers, auctioneers, 
dentists, and a thousand other things. But 
this does not mean that women monopolize 
such occupations. It is only a minority that 
leaves the home. But it is a majority that 
floods the elections. They are about equally 
divided between the established factions 
among the men and perhaps getting the mass 
of their opinions from the men but certainly 
furnishing their own steam. 

I note many curious phases of caste, if 
there may be said to be such in a fluent com- 
munity where everyone may change his status 
before nightfall by doughty deed or awful 



92 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

failure. There is an exalted status to occupa- 
tions that were once deemed commonplace. 
There is yet the same distinction that used to 
go to lawyer or doctor or head of a uni- 
versity department, but it is extended to such 
seemingly miscellaneous occupations as con- 
ductors of Turkish baths, special gymnasiums 
and mud baths, billiard halls, bowling alleys. 
Stores for sporting and athletic goods con- 
vey great distinction. And the demi-god of 
these, Cave Man Thomas, is indeed held in 
high regard and his minions have almost the 
same lustre, and so he is one of the eleven 
city commissioners. 

But the end of these surprises is not com- 
plete. There is a particular dignity given to 
junk dealers, cobblers, garbage handlers, and 
manufacturers, and devisers of patent medi- 
cines. They stand as did the lords, dukes, 
knights, and bishops of old, if there is a charm 
to their private characters equal to that of 
their public service. 

I find that a special training, and therefore 
a special distinction, is involved in being 
shoddy m.anufacturers, pawnbrokers, silo 
manufacturers. And many other once simple 
ways of making a living have become so com- 
plex and fastidious that they are the signs of 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 93 

nobility. But respectability, in man or 
woman, is, as a matter of fact, not always a 
thing of occupation in the final analysis. It 
may be a matter of race or of personal record. 
And sometimes it seems to be a matter of 
party politics. 

The really significant party lines are local. 
The Democratic and Republican parties have 
their turn every four years at national elec- 
tions but at all other seasons new ideas come 
into the local commissioners, platforms that 
cannot be classed as Democratic or Republi- 
can ideas and the people do not array them- 
selves under those banners but rather the ban- 
ners of Doctor Mayo Sims on the one hand 
and Black Hawk Boone on the other. 

New Harmony, Indiana, is particularly dis- 
tinguished for sending in civic and social re- 
cruits to Boone's faction, though the neu- 
cleus of the faction came up with him from 
Cairo. While New Harmony was founded by 
those who protested against mystical religion, 
many of the present waves of enthusiasm 
from that exceedingly vital place were born 
in the New Harmony Methodist and Epis- 
copal churches. They take to Boone by af- 
finity, and hate Mayo Sims by instinct. 

With no particular support from Boone, 
they have cultivated the mania for planting 



94 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

the highly specialized ever-blooming Golden 
Rain Trees from New Harmony as symbols 
of democratic feeling and as a way of saying 
that all men are created equal. And they call 
them The Gate Trees, since, passing under 
them, we enter the gate to the free land of 
democracy in symbol if not in fact. The hor- 
ticulturists from New Harmony are making 
newer and more magnificent varieties of the 
tree and sending them across the world. 

But in the Mystic Year, Springfield is 
rather to be discussed, for instance — as a con- 
vention center, which has at last evolved into 
the home of a perpetual World's Fair. It is 
as of old, a travelling man's home city, a 
retired farmer's place of sleep, a state of- 
ficial's paradise. Agricultural experts, coal 
mining experts, would-be statesmen of the 
middle west, have the same general relation 
to the city about them that they had in the 
ancient days of the horse-cars, and the Sanga- 
mon County Fair. The town has many of its 
ancient types. But they are overshadowed by 
the sculptors, the motion picture scenario 
writers, the motion picture directors and 
actors, and the prophets and sibyls of all 
the arts that go to make up a University 
Fair. The entrance examination for perma- 
nent ^residence in Springfield^ except for tho 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 95 

native-born, is the same as that for the Uni- 
versities of America. The native-born, no 
matter how stupid or cranky, cannot be ban- 
ished. There are so many extreme followers 
of the various local religious and philosophi- 
cal sects that Springfield is as much a Hobby 
Horse Fair as University Fair, if we are to 
believe the wits and the laughing poets. 

One index of the hobby riding character of 
the place is the way the humorous columnist, 
Romanoff, in the Boone Ax characterizes con- 
spicuous people, even at the risk of suit. To- 
day's Boone Ax contains a new epithet: "The 
Muttering Thibetan," a name for the young 
architect and protege of St. Friend, the 
Bread Giver. This youth makes his acquaint- 
ances impatient by talking to the empty air 
as lie walks the streets. 

The columnist names himself: ''The Senti- 
mental Romanoff. " He it is who named John 
Short, political rebel and painting teacher: 
* ' Sparrow Short. ' ' He perpetually hounds the 
mayor with the nicknames: ''Slick Slack 
Kopensky ' ' and ' ' Sims ' Bitters. ' ' This last is 
because Mayo Sims is deemed the boss and 
Kopensky his dose to be administered to the 
town in regular spoonsful. 

The deathless industrial revolution that 
followed the war with Germany still rumbles 



96 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

along elsewhere, with strikes, boycotting, 
blacklistings, picketings, street barricades, 
dynamitings, massacres, and general annoy- 
ances and bedevilment : — advancing, retreat- 
ing, and advancing again, through three gen- 
erations and around the world. 

But, for the most part, the soreheads out- 
side of Springfield, particularly those stewing 
in their own caldrons in Chicago, serve vi- 
cariously to set us free. We are wrestling 
with more up-to-date nuisances, with a 
brighter goal in sight. 

It is the dream of a human beehive far from 
the Marxian society. It is something on the 
newest New Harmony model, a Springfield 
that is democratic, artistic, religious, and 
patriarchal, and therefore following many of 
the most ancient forms and metaphors of 
orthodoxy, as an electric light may be soft- 
ened and given its final character by the shell 
of an ancient horn lantern. 

April 7 : — This evening I take Avanel 
Boone to the Henry George dinner. When I 
see that long array of distinguished citizens 
and Avanel names off to me their offices and 
attributes, I realize that Henry George tri- 
umphs in an especial manner over the soul of 
Springfieldj and I rejoice in this with all my 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 97 

heart, for I deeply revere the man and glory 
in, his influence. Avanel first points out to me 
the followers of her saints : — St. Scribe of the 
Shrines, who has only recently departed this 
world, and St. Friend, The Bread Giver, who 
is still to be seen in the Springfield Cathedral, 
active and wonderful. And here are some of 
the principal followers of this dynasty of 
saints: — the pious Darsies, the wholesome 
HoUys, the sad Eancies, torch bearers of lib- 
eralism. Among them are endless oflScers and 
privates in the ranks of the Amazonian and 
the Horseshoe Brotherhood, all religious and 
political radicals. Avanel is much amused to 
point out at the dinner an equal number of 
opposites, though often of the same nominal 
allegiances, the snobbish Rues, the wire- 
haired Radleys, the iron-ribbed Standings, 
and some of the less powerful of the mayor's 
faction, some young Kopenskys, Rocks, and 
the like, who have no more to do with the 
spirit of Henry George than they have to do 
with the New Testament. 

My dear Avanel grows more sarcastic and 
almost breaks up the meeting at our end of 
the table when Jefferson Radley, henchman 
and slave of the wicked Doctor Mayo Sims, 
opens the evening with a speech in which he 
names Henry George and Alexander Hamil- 



98 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

ton, in the same tone of voice and with the 
same praise. 

And now I get my first sight of Black Hawk 
Boone. As he rises to speak, my dear Avanel 
blushes with ill-repressed pride and she can- 
not keep the sparkle from her eyes and the 
tension of embarrassment and love from her 
face as Black Hawk shakes his mane. 

He is a short man, with a curly big black 
beard such as Ashurbanipal and Nimrod must 
have shaken at their foes. His cheek is flushed 
with anger and his midnight eyes give out 
lightning and he hits the table till the dishes 
rattle and as good as denounces Jefferson 
Radley as a hypocrite and a scoundrel. He 
is plainly one of those accustomed to having 
his way completely, as far as he has it at all, 
for few people will have the energy to combat 
the wrath he puts into any battle or into such 
a thing as a pretty after-dinner tribute to 
a saint. Boone howls, and snaps his teeth to- 
gether. His terrible sneer would destroy all 
but a rhinoceros or a seasoned politician. 

At length Boone possesses himself enough 
to speak clearly and with much economic elo- 
quence, a perfect bore to Avanel and myself. 
She is trying to fascinate me by allowing me 
to hold two of her fingers under the table. 
Then suddenly the banquet ends and she 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 99 

goes home with her father, looking severely 
at me. And she kisses her father, and whis- 
pers in his ear — no doubt that he made an ex- 
cellent speech. Boone does not so much as 
glance my way and I must wait till another 
time to talk to him. He has never been at 
home when I have called on his daughter. 

April 10: — The city hall is apparently less 
rigid than of old, a masterpiece of the hap- 
py-go-lucky. Mayor Slick Slack Kopensky, 
** Sims' Bitters," is sitting next to me at a 
coffee house table with Sims and Kusuko 
and Cave Man Thomas, all parts of the City 
Hall machine. Kopensky looks like the pic- 
tures of President William McKinley. While 
by no means so large a character, he is, by 
all reports, much more picturesque in his po- 
litical methods. He is even now saying to his 
coterie and with intent that those near by may 
hear if they so desire: "All the governments 
above that of the city weigh on the people 
like a hat of lead. But the government of our 
City Hall, as long as I have my way, is going 
to be as gay and easy as safety will allow. 
As long as the Public School bunch act like a 
bunch of regulators and hoot-owls, we will 
beat them to pulp." 

April 12: — Now I note certain established 



100 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

and accredited loafers, who are assumed to be 
part of the landscape. I find that the gang of 
Kopensky, Sims, and so forth have not failed 
to annex every one of such, who can tell a 
smutty story to some jolly group of porno- 
graphically inclined gentlemen. Mayo Sims 
believes in the medicine of laughter to cure 
the sickness of a political machine, and with 
Kopensky 's help has made it appear on the 
surface that the issue is between the laughing 
City Hall and the militant and irksome Uni- 
versity. So I get a public-school map of the 
city from the Board of Education offices and 
hire a taxi and make a quick still hunt around 
all the old and new sites. Judging by the 
equipment alone, I conclude at once that the 
public schools of Springfield have gone on 
like a line of irresistible battle-tanks. There 
is a complete material ladder from the first 
grade, on through the awards and honors of 
The University "World's Fair that sets itself 
in rigid competition with the masters of the 
world. But there are, no doubt, many qualifi- 
cations to this outline to be offered by friends 
and enemies of the system. It is plain in one 
taxi ride that the system has commanded 
rivers of ungrudged money and I can well be- 
lieve that outside the political field the system 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 101 

has had an unbroken and unchallenged pres- 
tige. 

In the coffee houses and the gigantic 
loafing lobbies of the motion-picture thea- 
tres and over the endless ice cream tables of 
the drug stores and confectioneries and in the 
lounging rooms of the dance-halls everywhere 
the argument roars and rattles and clatters 
and squeals and shrieks and splutters and 
swears. Every kind of a skirmish between 
Catholic and Protestant, aristocrat and demo- 
crat, labor and capital, is obliterated or 
merged into this main war. Springfield is 
Black Hawk Boone, President of the Board 
of Education and the "World's Fair of the 
University of Springfield and editor of the 
relentless Boone Ax: — versus this gang 
composed of Mayor Kopensky, Sims, his boss, 
and the laughing, dancing crew led by Drug 
Store Smith and Coffee Kusuko and Cave 
Man Thomas. 

Practically all the religious leaders and all 
the people with names of real distinction and 
untainted standing are with Black Hawk 
Boone. His School Board includes among 
others Rabbi Terence Ezekiel, Roxana Grey, 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third, son of 
the Senator who represents us in the World 
Government, St. Friend, the Bread Giver, 



102 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Rachel Madison, the Christian Science 
Reader, Mary Timmons and John Emis, rep- 
resentatives of the African Race, Gwendolyn 
Charles, the Motion Picture Director and 
scenario writer, Patricia Anthony, Josephine 
Windom of the Three Color Printing Depart- 
ment. They are a dithyrambic, chanting im% 
provising howling-dervish set, with a local 
millenial dialect of their own and lacking 
mainly in that sense of humor and everyday- 
ness and that cold political self-control with 
which the City Hall is fully supplied. 



CHAPTER Vn 

FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL MACHINERT, 

INCLUDING THE CITY HALL DRAG NET OF DRUG 

STORES, COFFEE HOUSES AND DANCE HALLS. 

April 11, 2018: — Mayor Kopensky is partic- 
ularly deep in Singapore learning. He con- 
ceals his well-beloved studies in public, as 
senators of old used to conceal their wealth. 
He must, of course, get his majorities from 
the University students, who are the majority 
of the population, so many are studying even 
after marriage, and so many men continue 
their studies after entering business. 

In political hours the attitude even of the 
older students of the University of Spring- 
field is seemingly ungrateful. It is that of the 
traditionally impudent college freshman 
toward the imaginary greasy grind and 
toward the professor who eggs him on to 
scholarship. They think the names of these 
City Commissioners: ''Cave Man Thomas," 
** Sparrow Short," ''Coffee Kusuko," "Mon- 
tague Rock," "Drug Store Smith," "Jeffer- 
son Radley," "Mayo Sims," mean dash and 
Tomance. 

103 



104 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

This is the ''City Hall" block of seven 
people in the city commission of eleven. The 
Mayor is the eighth. He seldom has occasion 
to use his prerogative of the casting vote, for 
it is not often five to five on a side. There 
are only three people in the commission who 
represent the School Board, one of them is 
Black Hawk Boone. 

Boone roars away with the others, who 
are on his right and left, like Aaron and Hur 
holding up the hands of Moses. And it is only 
at the end of some long and well dramatized 
skirmish that Boone wins by forcing the is- 
sues in his paper the Boone Ax and scaring a 
more cowardly four in Kopensky's faction to 
vote with him temporarily on what seems a 
purely educational issue. It is not always the 
same four he bulldozes and many and obvious 
are his plots. 

Drug Store Smith and Coffee Kusuko sup- 
ply about one-fifth of cold science to the 
Mayor's City Hall stew. They represent the 
*' slick" side of Kopensky. They have natty 
ideas of dress and natty ideas of administra- 
tion. The remainde of Kopensky 's routine 
political workers are slack in every way ex- 
cept in the matter of secret party-discipline. 

The columnist Romanoff in a charitable 
mood says, in the Boone Ax for April 11, 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 105 

2018: — "When we view the soggy-souled but 
amiable group of city fathers around Kopen- 
sky, we rejoice. There is no sign of a com- 
plete clean-up of the ages. The patriot is still 
at home in the government. And, as Andrew 
Jackson knew, there is an intrinsic governing 
power in any mass of humanity linked by 
friendship and under American skies. Along 
with the City Hall dishonesty there goes a 
certain mercy and fraternity, far from the 
sternness of the editor of this paper, who may 
take my remarks for what they are worth, and 
he may fire me if he chooses. Let my boss, the 
editor, admit, since he must, that the City 
Hall gang keep our more angular truth-tell- 
ing moods from torturing the town beyond 
reason. As it is, I declare myself the only 
real jester among all our children of light." 
April 15: — As I wander about, I am glad 
that in my former life I was a member of 
the Anti-Saloon League of Central Hlinois. 
There is no such thing as a saloon to be seen. 
The bar room is as extinct as the trilobite. 
Coca-Cola and Bevo have their new successors 
every day, along with mysterious elaborations 
of coffee and tea, and spiced drinks from the 
Jungles of South America. And, of course, 
after a hundred non-alcoholic years the soda 
fountains have tremendous importance. Drug 



106 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Store Smith, member of the city council, is the 
local Soda Fountain King. He is now the 
owner of all the drug stores, including Dodds' 
Drug Store, which keeps its old location at 
Fifth and Monroe. 

I have indeed a curious impression as I go 
into Dodds ' for a soda. Fifth and Monroe re- 
minds me of a century before. It is still the 
street-car center of our town. There are as of 
old long benches in Dodds' where people are 
waiting to take street cars and there are the 
same revolving stools along the soda fountain 
counter but that counter is twice as long and 
there are tables for customers now. The sodas 
are as good as those wonders Jim Sylva used 
to mix, but no better. 

Across the street is the old Coe's Book 
Store, owned by some descendant of the origi- 
nal Coe family. There is, as of old, a great 
counter of magazines, some of them better, 
some of them rawer than the old list. Many 
of them are now published in Springfield or 
near by. The majority of the motion picture 
magazines are full of simpering photographs 
of Los Angeles ladies in bathing suits. They 
are, of course, delightful to behold but the 
mystery still remains as to what this has to 
do with the art of the motion picture. Of the 
literary magazines, the Atlantic Monthly and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 107 

Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, still survive. 
The Atlantic still keeps its brick red cover 
and its nippy New England style and Poetry 
still has Pegasus on the cover and new poets 
on the inside. Vogue and Vanity Fair are still 
for sale. I wander out and watch the Fifth 
and Monroe crowd again. It is Saturday, nine 
o'clock in the evening, and the automobile 
horns are deafening and the crossing police- 
man is quite busy. 

And now I have gone to a good old slap- 
stick movie, by a descendant of Charlie Chap- 
lin, and I am standing again on the corner and 
it is half past ten. Many people are looking 
up at the passing figures in the dance hall in 
the third story over the theatre. Windows 
are open and wild Singaporian music pours 
out into the streets. There are great yellow 
Singaporian lanterns hanging in front of the 
open windows and yellower light is pouring 
from the hall itself. It is one of the chain of 
Yellow dance halls in the syndicate owned by 
Kusuko and part of his political machine, 
along with his chain of Coffee houses. This 
particular place is called "The Hall of Vel- 
aska." 

There was a man who sat by me in the 
movie laughing like a boy. He is now beside 



108 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

me again. He is a gigantic black haired but 
aged Jew, obviously the Eabbi Terence Eze- 
kiel, heretic, and planter of the Oaks of 
Springfield. He is in most matters a hench- 
man of Boone and a political ''scrapper," 
whose deeds have set the town ringing. We 
are friends in a minute. He has seen me with 
Avanel in his synagogue — takes me as a mat- 
ter of course, asks me to go with him to the 
Tom Strong Coffee House and Restaurant, 
just east of the Gaiety Theatre. There we en- 
counter Boone and the over-sensitive quiver- 
ing Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third. 
They are enjoying eleven o'clock salt mack- 
erel together. They take along with it the 
knockout coffee of Kusuko, who owns all the 
coffee houses under whatever name, new or 
old. 

And so the Rabbi and I join in these re- 
freshments and have a jolly midnight with 
the heart of political and educational Spring- 
field and, as long as the Rabbi leads the argu- 
ment, there is more than enough wit in the 
assembly. He has the Jewish turn for puns 
and it is plain that Doctor Mayo Sims and 
Kopensky have a second laughing f oeman. 

But amid the jokes the Rabbi is not a bit 
backward about hatching local empires along 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 109 

with this inbred Michael and this black-haired 
descendant of Daniel Boone. Their present 
campaign, which they do not conceal in its 
tactics from me, their ' ' cousin, ' ' is, of course, 
an effort to out-maneuver the Mayor. Ko- 
pensky wants to bring cheap unskilled labor 
to town, leaving out the usual University 
entrance-examination. His ostensible reason 
is that the World's Fair buildings will not be 
completed August 15, the date of opening, 
without this aid. It is obviously but a ma- 
neuver to bring more City Hall votes to town 
and votes of a manageable type. 

And so I talk politics with these three. 
Boone proclaims that the presence this eve- 
ning of Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third, is 
an evidence that the Boones and the Michaels 
can pull together from time to time and 
the Rabbi and the lad seem completely ruled 
by this headlong Boone who cannot eat mack- 
erel without glowering as though he were de- 
vouring his enemies. 

The other two are jollying him out of his 
intensity and he seems to thank them for it. 
He really relaxes a little toward midnight, as 
though, after all, this is a festive occasion of 
red blooded lads in a coffee house. As I 
think it over, walking home alone, there is an 



no THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

elusive impression that young Michael was 
being given an extra show of confidence for 
*' reasons" by the apparently headlong older 
gentlemen. 

April 17: — I have been asking questions 
about Drug Store Smith. It seems this per- 
son, Smith, has aspirations, and values his 
exceedingly nominal place among the scien- 
tific chemists of America and will leave the 
town any time to attend a congress of such, 
where he receives due invitation: — and it is 
part of the tactics of Boone to lure him out 
when his vote will be an inconvenience. But it 
is not always easy to get him sufficient honors 
of this kind for he is not a benevolent scien- 
tist. The charm of his tonics and beverages is 
deemed specious, though some of them are 
discreetly marked: ''Highly recommended by 
Doctor Mayo Sims. " " They say ' ' he did some 
sound chemical and biological research in his 
youth in the Springfield University labora- 
tories. 

I have been asking questions and am be- 
ginning to understand Coifee Kusuko. He 
has a chain of coffee houses as long as Smith 's 
chain .of pharmacy-post-office-street-car-sta- 
tion - patent - medicine - confectionery - cigar- 
stand-and-soda-fountain establishments. Ku- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD Ul 

susko has made the black demi-tasse the spe- 
cial Springfield vice and there are no deeper 
addicts than those who fight him politically: 

People feel quite siire his drink contains 
some more sinister ingredient from the Malay 
peninsula. And he it is who sees to it that all 
the business offices are equipped with coffee 
urns that whistle through the late afternoon: 
— the custom of "mixing business and coffee 
having originated with his great great grand- 
mother, a famous local stenographer, who in 
the end became lady mayor, through her sten- 
ographers ' guild. Politics and coffee are 
hereditary with Kusuko. 

In the legitimate organization which min- 
isters to this drinking habit, Kusuko has con- 
cealed his henchmen, who bring him all 
needed information and carry abroad all nec- 
essary orders. And they have a considerable 
opportunity to serve him. Drinking begins in 
the offices at 4.30 P. M. and in the more fas- 
tidious business groups with many forms, till 
it is near to resembling the Japanese tea- 
ceremony. Stenographers, some austere and 
some luxurious, mingle with women political 
leaders, such as Orator Carrie Moore, Portia, 
the Singing Aviator, and others. These help 
materially to make up the sum of grace and 



112 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

bedevilment of the business and political day. 
A little later people who are still restless and 
do not want to go home drift off toward the 
motion picture houses, or the drug stores or 
the coffee houses of Kusuko. 

As to the coffee houses, I make my tours 
through many and find these places extraordi- 
narily varied in design, though the same gen- 
eral average of a crowd is in most of them. 
There is a Chinese-looking place called: **The 
Opium Fish." There is a place hung with 
copies of Velasques, Goya, Sorolla, and others, 
called: "The Spanish Gypsy." This is a place 
quieter than most. Then there is a kind of a 
Jazz emporium with copper and brass deco- 
rations, called "The Whing Whang Tree." 
There are two other places that specialize in 
chop suey, called: "The Mock Duck" and 
' ' The Fire Cracker King ' ' and then I loaf in 
"The Pig and the Goose," and "The Sword 
of the Skallawag," etc. In these last two on 
slightly raised platforms the Malay story- 
tellers sit cross-legged. They unroll the beau- 
tiful ensnaring legends of the Malay penin- 
sula and the islands around it. These story- 
tellers appear occasionally in some of the 
other coffee houses, also, along with negro 
singers, etc. 

And now comes Kusuko 's last touch, where 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 113 

he has completely replaced the old political 
functions of the American saloon, as an ac- 
ceptable harness for the social brigands. 
There is always some allusion in the coffee 
houses, some implication, that the next real 
thing to do will be dancing, later in the eve- 
ning, in wonderful Yellow Dance Halls. These 
are also owned by Kusuko and are the very 
keystone of his system. I follow the drifting 
tide of jolly good fellows several evenings and 
it leads me inevitably to the halls before mid- 
night. 

They are never too near the coffee houses 
and soda fountains and never too far away. 
There is nothing on the surface to make one 
apprehensive in the halls, except some very 
daring social dancing. There is often a mo- 
tion picture show for part of the evening just 
off the lounging hallway and place of prom- 
enade. The crowd is not much below the aver- 
age of the regular Fifth and Monroe crowd 
of all kinds of people. 

April 20: — I attend this evening, at the in- 
vitation of two prospective art students, a 
session of the Board of Education. They ex- 
plain the session to me, while we sit in the 
gallery and look down upon the general tem- 
pestuousness. 

Boone is not only the presiding officer but 



114 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

has the impression that he is the whole Board 
of Education. Despite this they are fond of 
him on the board, but row with him till the 
men cuss before the ladies in desperate efforts 
to hold him down, and keep him down, and 
prevent his bullying the whole assembly out 
of existence. He insults everybody mercilessly 
and wags his black beard at them till they 
quail and quake. 

It is a joy, a sorrow, an amazement, and a 
wonder to me to see people who look so much 
like the old Prognosticator's Club, fighting 
away, and when I meet them all at the end 
of the verbal war none of them see me ex- 
cept as a casual bystander. 

April 21: — I have had a jolly evening at 
Tom Strong's with my beloved Rabbi. Boone 
is our inevitable theme in the end. The Rabbi, 
as we drink the black coffee and eat the salt 
mackerel, confirms my tentative remark that 
Boone, as president of the Board of Education, 
enforces its edicts, though few of the decrees 
are those into which from the standpoint of 
strategy, or even conviction, he can put his 
private heart. But, the Rabbi points out, they 
are all clubs with which Boone can pound the 
Mayor's majority in the city commission and 
he backs the board 's edicts, every one, in The 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 116 

Boone Ax, and ever so often forces some- 
thing through the council. 

Boone is also University Professor, one 
hour a week, and in his professorial special 
pleading, which he excludes from his activi- 
ties as chairman of the Board of Education, 
he presents to the University and the world a 
new doctrine of health and economics, called : 
"Boonism" by his followers, and ''The Com- 
plete Healing" in his text book. 

The Rabbi expounds: "Boonism de- 
nounces metal money for a starter. Boone's 
aversion to it has come through millionaires 
burying their money and bringing out coins 
one at a time. Boone advocates a special sys- 
tem of paper currency for an economic rem- 
edy, and as a means of abolishing million- 
aires. So Kusuko allows only metal money 
to be used in his places, which regulation 
Boone, after some contests, has accepted with 
a sense of humor, since he likes black colffee 
and cannot deny it and wants a jolly place to 
meet his friends. And meanwhile million- 
aires, though forbidden by the constitution 
to exist, keep on hiding money." 

According to the Rabbi: — "The most out- 
standing prescription in the personal health 
chapters of 'The Complete Healing* is the 



116 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Apple Amaranth orchard. The devotee is to 
walk in the orchards summer and winter, 
breathing the breath of the bark, blossoms, 
apples, and leaves, with certain well-worded 
philosophic meditations. In general Boone 
condemns drugs, so there is a personal reason 
for making war on him on the part of Smith 
and Sims and their followers. 

''The Amaranth Apple orchard, around 
the grave of the Sangamon County pioneer 
and saint. Hunter Kelly, is particularly es- 
teemed by the Boone following. 

But I cannot imagine Boone or any re- 
motely resembling imitator indulging in phil- 
osophic meditations. I could rather imagine 
him climbing a tree like a cinnamon bear, 
only with more speed and fidgets. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE NEW SPRINGFIELD FLAG AND THE STAR PLAN 

MAP FOR WHICH IT STANDS, INCLUDING THE 

DOUBLE WALLS ON THE FAR BORDERS OF THE 

CITY, BUILT LONG AGO BY RALPH 

ADAMS CRAM. 

May 4, 2018: — I make an early afternoon 
call on Avanel. First we mourn over the scene 
outside, for Apple Amaranths and all are 
nipped by the frost and from all over the 
United States come reports that the peach 
crop once more is blighted. Then Avanel is in 
her most "young ladyfied" mood and com- 
plains fondly of her fathers general code of 
behavior. I gather the impression that her 
ideal has no big black beard and no long curly 
oily locks, no fashion of getting angry. She 
is just the age when they palpitate between 
fond indulgence of ''father" and black fury 
at his goat-like intractability to all plain sug- 
gestions that he make a change in himself. 
Boone being a widower and Avanel his only 
child, she is his shepherdess most emphat- 
ically. 

Meanwhile Avanel hand-embroiders a gor- 

117 



118 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

geous Springfield Flag and allows me to help 
her untangle several skeins of red silk and in 
general to play the idle dangler as well as I 
can. I am quite aware I do not do it in the 
off-hand manner I should. I am a little too 
heavy with the silk but she admits that I do 
not roar at the least tangle, as her father 
might. 

Anyway, the flag is finished. And just 
as I begin to get what might be called ''in 
earnest" with Avanel, a lot of disgusting 
young dandies, whose names I do not know, 
come in for tea. And I am obliged to 
stay and drink the stuff and I would rather 
drink rain water off the roof of a soot-factory, 
that's what I would. 

May 5 : — ^I have seen in waking dreams, as 
I walk on the edge of New Springfield, at the 
prairie end of a shadowed deserted street, a 
great open door into the deep of eternity 
and, hovering above the great deep, Spring- 
field, when it becomes the perfect and trans- 
cendent city. I look down upon towers so 
packed together in a sheaf and the flags 
so might}^ it seems but a fantasy of celes- 
tial flagstaffs and pinnacles. Th^re are many 
flags of the International Government and 
many flashes of the Star Spangled Banner. 
But one flag stirs me the most. It is the one 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 119 

embroidered with, the very silk and with the 
very same stitches I have seen Avanel put in 
with much silly chat so lately. It is the flag 
nearest. It is on a tower rising from the deep, 
a neighbor, it seems, I can almost touch. But 
as I look there are thousands of flags like it 
suddenly unfurled on a myriad pinnacles of 
the city below. 

May 6: — All the city is mourning the 
blighting of the season's acorns and Ama- 
ranth Apples and the buds of the Golden Rain 
Tree. Almost all the boughs have the little 
blackened tufts of buds and leaves. Avanel 
meets me at the door in the evening. Her 
father has given her a terrific scolding for 
what she says is ''nothing much'* and she is 
glad to walk and walk for miles and cool off 
in the clear starry air. I get it out of her, she 
has been trying to stop her father 's smoking. 
But she is forgetting it and taking on her sibyl 
mood. Later she confesses she has been try- 
ing to get her father to cut his hair and 
quit dyeing his left hand crimson and that 
he has been trying to get her to dye her hand 
and unbind her hair as a Boone should. So, 
sore of heart, she is willing that we should 
be true comrades in the midst of this universe. 
And at once we are, as it were, brothers and 



120 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

sisters of the stars. She goes so far as to take 
my arm. 

She agrees to my proposal that we pluck 
out the mystery of the souls of our city's 
flags together, if two young creatures may 
get such wisdom. 

May 7: — Avanel this evening takes me to 
call upon St. Friend, The Giver of Bread. It 
is, in her eyes, quite a religious function. And 
we are to inquire formally about flags. St. 
Friend knows me not, though there is some- 
thing in his voice that goes back one hundred 
years, and I dimly remember, in my double 
consciousness, visits with a friend who had 
much the same furniture, and some of the 
same turns of phrase, but he had not the face 
or figure of this man. We are by the open 
fireplace, under the old lithograph of Alex- 
ander Campbell. Flashing in the firelight, is 
the old bookcase to the left, containing the 
bound volumes of the Millenial Harbinger 
and Richardson 's old life of Campbell and all 
the rest of it. 

St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, is indeed an 
old man, a little lame, leaning on a cane. 
He is much over six feet tall, when straight- 
ened, and with a smooth shaven countenance, 
but looking as Abraham Lincoln might have 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 121 

done, had he lived into another century 
and grown grayer with no other sign of the 
passing of the years. St. Friend, the Giver 
of Bread, receives Avanel as a favorite daugh- 
ter and convert and indeed I feel in the air 
the justification for my estimate of this girl. 
In his presence she puts aside all vestige of 
nonsense. It is Church to her to be with him. 

St. Friend disgraces himself by taking the 
oldest kind of a corncob pipe from a shelf 
inside the fireplace and smoking like a chim- 
ney. He asks Avanel if she cares and she 
says, **No, certainly not." 

We get to the matter of the flags quite late 
in the evening. 

St. Friend tells how in his youth when 
Apple-Amaranth blossoms had as now a 
touch of red in the hearts, those hearts began 
to be called, ''The Blood of Hunter Kelly," 
and St. Friend suggests that the saying be 
restored to its former place on the tongues 
of Springfield, especially since the red and 
white star in the municipal flag is copied 
from this flower. 

Then much of what he and Avanel have 
to say to each other about the flag he de- 
clares he will put into his next sermon. It is 
plain to me that this gray mind leans for vi- 



122 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

tality upon the mind of the proud young 
child. She knows it not but only thinks her- 
self a kind of playmate in a solemn way. 

On the way home Avanel is much ashamed 
of herself for staying so long and says that I 
am an awkward lummox, and I can walk 
home my own way. 

Therefore I make my speech, as I take her 
sternly to her door. She holds herself straight 
as a ramrod, with lips stubbornly pursed to- 
gether, as I say: 

''Your name is Springfield. If there is any 
banner of the soul flying above me, your name 
is written on it and the white is the pride that 
makes you so angry and the red is the 
strength that makes you an Amazon, and the 
blue of the flag is the prairie sky, of which 
you are the vainest, loveliest daughter." 
Avanel goes into the house with a sharp 
''Goodnight." 

May 8: — It is a blazing spring day and 
everything that was not frosted is getting 
quite green. Baby carriages are abroad, with 
the pink darlings crowing within them, wel- 
coming the sun. The streets are full of spring 
finery. About four o 'clock on this jolly after- 
noon I meet Rabbi Terence Ezekiel in Tom 
Strong's. We fill up on rousing coffee and I 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 123 

manage to get the conversation around to the 
Springfield flag about which I am endlessly 
curious. 

The Rabbi says: — ''The star of red and 
white in the heart of the flag, being the twen- 
ty-first star in the design, indicates, in the 
official interpretation, that Illinois was the 
twenty-first state admitted to the Union and 
the red part indicates Springfield, the capi- 
tal. ' ' But Rabbi Ezekiel prefers the idea that 
this red and white star indicates in the year 
2018 the coming of age of Illinois and Amer* 
ica. 

May 10: — It is Sunday morning, and I am 
in the Great Cathedral of St. Peter and St. 
Paul with Avanel. The whole picture is clean 
cut around me. Every word and whisper 
is clear. There are no clouds at all. Yet the 
Cathedral is indeed gigantic. I am reminded 
of majestic Notre Dame in Paris. It is the 
Eame combination of styles, and St. Friend be- 
gins his sermon with an appeal for a special 
fund to add the steeples. As in cathedrals of 
Europe, only the rectangular foundations of 
the spires, a little higher than the roof, are 
in place. 

He preaches the sermon, which Avanel 
helped him build, which touches on the flag: 



124 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

''Visitors to the Fair may care to know 
the path of white around the red star of 
Springfield is the map of our five-pointed sys- 
tem of double walls and within them a star- 
plan system of avenues. This system, like this 
star, is a symbol of the relation of springfield 
to all the outside world. The top of the star 
points north to Chicago by way of the outer- 
wall gate at Mason City. Tomorrow the corn 
dragon engines begin to take that route. They 
are to be dedicated with honors that I hope 
all who hear me will be there to endorse 
and acclaim. The star-point, indicating north- 
east, starts our flying machine trip over 
the inner-wall gate at Illiopolis and the outer- 
wall gate at Warrensburg and on to Danville, 
if you please, and to New York and the sea 
journey to the capital of the International 
Government, which government is looked to 
with loyalty by all patriots and honorable 
men. Highways running parallel to the air 
lines in this direction are haunted by mem- 
ories of Johnny Appleseed, in the regions of 
Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Massilon, Ohio. 
The roads are of some distinction in all the 
fruit and flower religions of Springfield. Our 
city sends pilgrims that way in the spring 
who will yet replant the whole world in glory 
with many a sacred grove. But the southeast 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 125 

point of the Springfield star system is a road 
that passes through the inner-wall gate at 
Taylorville and the outer at Pana, and points 
in the direction of Virginia and Richmond. 
Our fruit and flower devotees take all roads, 
but because of the wonders of the early south- 
ern spring many of them deem this the 
holiest way. There are found, more than 
other where, the botanizing pilgrims of the 
faiths of my friend Rabbi Terence Ezekiel 
and my friend Mother Grey and her daughter 
Roxana. There many of the Rabbi's young 
oaks have sprung up in the name of universal 
righteousness and that way he still takes his 
pilgrimage, according to the mystical doc- 
trine of the Oak which is the foundation of 
our Rabbi's dreams. This road goes through 
New Harmony, Indiana, before it turns south 
into Kentucky. Many pilgrims pass that way 
to do honor to the original home of the Golden 
Rain Tree of Democracy. 

* * The point in the star-plan system of boule- 
vards that becomes a road passing through 
the inner-wall gate at Modesta and the outer 
at Palmyra starts the fancy moving along a 
certain classic flying-machine route over Al- 
ton and St. Louis, southwest to the tremend- 
ous motion-picture studios of the Los Angeles 



126 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

region and the radical educational institu- 
tions evolved from them, which are so great 
a peril to the land. This air route I call * The 
Path of 111 Learning.' It is constantly trav- 
elled by our motion-picture educators and 
artists who go to exchange ideas and refresh 
themselves at Los Angeles, that great seat of 
spiritual lies.'* 

At this point Avanel frowns indeed she 
will not be bullied out of her movies. But 
she grows grave again and she takes earn- 
estly what else he has to say: 

''The star-point indicating northwest with 
the inner gate at Ashland and the outer at 
Virginia is the one that interests me most. 
There are three orders of discipline in connec- 
tion with this Cathedral. The newest is the 
Order of the Blessed Bread of the More Lib- 
eral Observance, in whose name we are to 
have the great bread distribution on June 
the eighth. The one a little older is The Order 
of the Blessed Bread of the Strict Observance, 
a discipline for those lost in despair and de- 
termined to seize one more hope, if there be 
one, before they consent to die. 

''But the oldest order, the darling of the 
founder of the greater work of this Cathedral, 
is the order of the Pilgrimage, founded here 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 127 

seventy-five years ago by St. Scribe of the 
Shrines, now gone to his reward. And the 
road northwest, as all but strangers in the 
city know, leads from the first shrine, which 
is the tomb of Lincoln, through the gates at 
Ashland and Virginia, straight north to Ha- 
vana and the classic land of Spoon River and 
Lewiston, to North Dakota and the coast, and 
so on around the world to the hundred shrines. 
How many young pilgrims have turned back 
before they reached the outer gate at Vir- 
ginia, held more by soul's weakness than by 
bodily weariness, within the double walls 
built so long ago by Ralph Adams Cram ! But 
some here present today have continued the 
not too difficult journey and have returned to 
live within these double walls again and 
adore the Host upon this altar. 

They have taken the ocean ships or air- 
ships of Seattle, they have gone afoot and by 
every known vehicle through Asia. It is a 
journey unforgettable — to the holy land of 
Confucius and to his holy grave, to the 
Blessed Bohdi Tree of Buddha, to the bathing 
places of Benares, to the holy places of Mecca, 
Jerusalem, Assisi, Rome, Lourdes, and Lon- 
don. I, too, in my youth, with a fiery young 
company from Springfield made this pil- 



128 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

grimage which was first undertaken by St. 
Scribe and written down later in his little 
book of Discipline called: 'The Hundred 
Shrines.' "We went by motor, by steamship, 
by flying machine, but whenever possible, 
afoot. Let the visitor in this audience note 
that he who prays at these shrines, according 
to the office of The Brotherhood of The Hun- 
dred Shrines, has made, we think, the true 
beginning of life for a modern soul. 

''Every shrine is a modern Station of the 
Cross. Between shrine and shrine, await 
many desperate foes of the soul. And so 
have often called it ' The Eoad to Heaven and 
Hell.' There is no nominal way to take this 
discipline. He who is a little hurt by this dis- 
cipline is destroyed." 

May 11: — ^Avanel and I are taking lunch 
together at the Fire Cracker King Restau- 
rant and Coffee House. She is, indeed, giving 
absent father a scolding. It seems that Black 
Hawk Boone has presumed to "offer advice." 
And she "hates him." I venture to inquire 
wherein he has been so presumptuous as to 
attempt to guide her wandering feet. And it 
seems that he thinks she is too fond of long 
rehearsals for the celebration of the festival 
of St. Scribe, May fifteenth in the Gordon 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 129 

Craig Theatre, and not enough devoted to the 
Amazonian drill ground. He wants three 
drills a week, not two. He says we may be at 
war with Singapore any day and she cannot 
dance to victory and had best quit religious 
dancing, till after the war. My reply is quite 
deft. I insist that I, at least, am prepared to 
appreciate her dancing and am only waiting 
the next appearance at the Gordon Craig 
Theatre and she continues to scowl but says I 
have but till the fifteenth to wait. It is now 
about two in the afternoon and we are going 
to hear some speeches. Avanel explains to me 
that the first Corn Dragon Engines are start- 
ing, with great ceremony, to Chicago and we 
are to hear orations at the station before they 
go. The transportation district centering in 
Hlinois has, through Eric Hedder, a plough- 
boy from near Cairo, evolved a type of a dra- 
gon engine, a mate to the dragon-fly flying 
machine. A complete set of these engines 
have just been finished for the Springfield and 
Chicago division. They are equipped with 
silvery horns instead of shrill whistles. The 
exercises are, of course, at the gigantic Union 
Depot at Tenth and Washington. The pas- 
sengers of honor include this Eric Hedder, the 
Mayor and some of his political enemies, in- 



130 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

eluding Black Hawk Boone, who is making 
the speech of the afternoon. This prospect 
seems to please his daughter fairly well, con- 
sidering how she hates him. But now we are 
there, and Boone is already speaking: 

''You all know that my Kentucky forbears 
went west and settled down near Cairo, Illi- 
nois, and also that I feel no odium in the 
appelation 'Egyptian.' Possibly the name of 
the region, 'Egypt, Illinois* derives from the 
fact that there is an older Cairo, in Egypt. 
Then Memphis, Tennessee is not so far away. 
Possibly the floods and the malaria and the 
frogs and the languor and the witchcraft of 
legend, where the Ohio comes rolling down 
into the swamps, help out the Egyptian idea. 
The time was when 'Egypt' meant, exclu- 
sively, that part of Illinois by Cairo. Now it 
is applied in derision to all down state Illi- 
nois, by the peanut politicians of Chicago. In 
a whirlwind world, independent languor be- 
comes a virtue, and meditation engenders a 
finer art than any nervousness." 

Here Avanel whispers to me: "He is a 
great one to prate of languor. ' ' But now her 
father is mentioning an artist she admires. 

"Eric Hedder, who designed these engines, 
is a ploughboy from near my home-town of 
Cairo. The corn dragons are indeed messen- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 131 

gers from Egypt to Chicago, and other where. 
The corn-dragon engine is a giant wound-up 
mechanical toy but something more. It is a 
kind of citizen, through its Egyptian soul, 
and through the soul of the engineer who hap- 
pens at any time to inhabit it. He is one of 
our new type of aristocracy. The older aris- 
tocracies indicated their worth by having 
themselves photographed in the midst of their 
athletic sports, at the race track, or playing 
golf or croquet, or in soldier's uniform. But 
in this year of grace, 2018, they are depicted 
as amateur or professional railroad engineers, 
or the like. To hold so many lives in trust 
and to discharge the obligation year after 
year without faltering is classed as the occu- 
pation of a scholar and a gentleman. And so, 
as is the case of all special privilege, the 
chariot of privilege is decorated and starred 
and given plumes like the corn and made 
glorious. 

^ ' To me this is a journey from the State of 
Illinois to somewhere else. Loyalty to Chi- 
cago is a commendable thing in itself, but 
Chicago is the commercial center of the entire 
United States, and the only way to keep it 
from tipping and teetering the state clean 
over, is to bring forward other than commer- 
cial considerations. Loyalty to Chicago is loy- 



132 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

alty to Florida and California, Oregon and 
Maine. These are all of them quite commend- 
able commonwealths. But loyalty to Spring- 
field is the distinctive sign of loyalty to Illi- 
nois. 

"The engines will rush hack, bringing 
skilled mechanics, wise industrial statesmen, 
and world leaders in art for little Springfield, 
down here in Egypt. Such people are held 
in infinitely higher honor here than in the 
Chicago that made them. All men and women 
seem to have increased in vanity in this year 
2018, and this is a highly commendable 
change. I rejoice that citizens of the United 
States now live upon honor and its power 
more than upon the desire for mere currency. 
So the corn-dragons will always be robbing 
Chicago, America's commercial capital, of 
her best. People will keep coming here for 
much smaller salaries and for more passion- 
ate praise. [Applause!] 

*'I hope that the whizzing and whistling of 
these engines, henceforth more musical than 
of old, will be the war cry of our whole 
Egyptian village and countryside. I hope 
that for generation after generation many 
dragons of this breed will whirl by, and many 
another ploughboy, sighting them through 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 133 

the cornfields, will not only catch the original 
vision of Eric Hedder, but new untamed 
dreams of art and glory and creation will be 
engendered on such days. 

''Without haste, without rest, our rewards 
and appreciations pay for our creations. Let 
the young Egyptian patriot see these dragons 
as big brothers that sweep through the high 
growing corn armies, messengers flying from 
county to county, crying in the trumpet glory 
of their silver voices, that art and life are 
married in the region of the capital." [Great 
Applause!] 

Avanel admits that her father had to 
roar in this case, for the crowd was large, 
and, speaking from a station platform in 
the open air, the loudest man cannot be 
heard with traffic going by and newsboys 
selling extras about the event before it hap- 
pens. We walk just a little south along the 
viaduct on Tenth from the great New Union 
Depot to a most familiar and ancient struc- 
ture, a kind of rough memorial shrine, which 
was once the station whence the Lincoln presi- 
dential train left for Washington and where 
Lincoln gave his parting word to the City 
of Springfield. Outside the door of the mu- 
seum, Avanel and I re-read Lincoln 's famous 



134 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

farewell to his fellow citizens, cast in bronze 
and set up for a tablet long ago. 

Then, being in the mood of reminiscence, 
we walk past the Lincoln residence and 
Avanel begins to compare Lincoln to Jesus 
and speak of him as the greatest person sent 
to men since Jesus. And I think the sibyl 
has at last permanently emerged and that my 
companion is finally with me. 

But there is a devil in this Avanel. And 
so she says, partly because she thinks it, and 
partly because she knows it will annoy me: 
*'I wonder if the Lincoln residence was lo- 
cated among the best people when it was 
built ? ' ' And then, as the silence grows deadly 
on my side of the conversation: "My grand- 
mother once told me that Mrs. Lincoln was 
really a fashionable person and not of poor- 
white stock like Lincoln and I am glad to 
hear it. He must have been a great trial to 
her, with her refined instincts. ' ' 

My silence growing even more deadly she 
continues: — *'I am sorry the Lincoln residence 
is not in a more fashionble region today. I 
wonder if they can move it out by the Country 
Club. Springfield is all 'society,' you know, 
and you might as well admit it ... I 
wish if they leave the residence here they 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 135 

would move these common houses and build 
a great Greek Temple over the Lincoln home, 
and make a park for about two hundred yards 
each way and have big avenues leading up 
to it and allow no common person to live 
anywhere near here. Lincoln was after all the 
greatest person since Jesus and we ought to 
show some sense of it." 

We stroll on and on, and Avanel, being not 
yet twenty, as this world counts the years, is 
somewhat forgiven for these discursive re- 
marks. She does not want to be forgiven, and 
hates my pious forbearance and at last says: 
''I simply cannot stand that cheap cowboy 
hat you wear. It is simply a ridiculous pose 
or else the instinct of a rotter." 

So I take Miss Avanel Boone firmly by the 
arm and turn her toward town and at my in- 
sistence we step into the first gentlemen's 
furnishing store we encounter and I urge her 
to help the clerk pick out a hat for me. They 
select one that is hardly a hair's breadth dif- 
ferent from the one I have been wearing. I 
pay for it in paper money, ''to please old 
Black Hawk Boone," as I explain to the 
humorous clerk. Avanel seems placated by 
this quip, though there is no reason on earth 
why she should be. She begins to behave like 



136 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

a Christian at once and stays so, all the way 
to her door. And I bid her good evening 
and she gives me the word I may soon see her 
dancing. 



CHAPTER IX 

TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT OVER WHETHER PEOPLE WITH 

BURIED GOLD SHALL MONOPOLIZE THE 

FLYING PRIVILEGE. 

May 15, 2018: — It is the evening of this 
day and Avanel is quite busy in her parlor 
with costumes. I am invited for dinner with 
her and old Boone. I am to help her immedi- 
ately after to the theatre with her costumes 
that I am to carry in two heavy suitcases. 
Three friends of Avanel 's have prepared the 
dinner and serve it in true communal frater- 
nity. According to their chatter the coming 
event is all in the spirit of a college lark or 
grand commencement occasion, rather than a 
churchly event. 

But when I sit in the Gordon Craig Theatre, 
strangers to the right and left of me, the 
theatre darkened and the stage a temple 
steps, the Avanel emerges that has refused so 
many times to come forth at my petition. Her 
face and carriage convey the sibyl, the saint, 
the mother of great sages of our city and the 
muse of poets of our city. She hardly knows 
this, for the innocence of her unspoiled youth 
tells its gentle, overwhelming story, As for 

137 



138 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

the alleged dance, it is more procession than 
anything else: boys and girls, men and 
women, moving to varied chants or meas- 
ured silences or amid wonderful and meas- 
ured lights. There is no very direct al- 
lusion to the Birthday of St. Scribe. Old 
political parades are suggested and historical 
triumphs, but mostly the type of parade that 
might be held of a Sunday before a religious 
service, ending at a shrine or an altar. 
There are ceremonies from the book of St. 
Scribe of the Shrines. His favorite shrines 
are suggested, beginning with the Grave of 
Lincoln at Oak Ridge. The dancers are 
crowned with Apple- Amaranth leaves, which 
are larger than ordinary apple-leaves and a 
paler green. Avanel's part in the pageantry 
is but that of a leader and partner of the chief 
marching man, young Joseph Bartholdi 
Michael, the Third. Avanel is closely followed 
in glory and signficance by the whole com- 
pany. And Michael deftly takes his place as a 
proper background for Avanel, for which I 
thank him. Therefore when Avanel sits with 
me a little by her open fire tonight, all tired 
out and very solemn she knows she has vindi- 
cated herself in my eyes a little and she tosses 
her head and wears jauntily one young green 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 139 

Apple-Amaranth leaf which still gleams 
brightly in her black hair. 

She asks, as a child: ''Did it seem as 
though we were at shrines together or 
walking in the woods together?" And so I 
answer: "I have never yet been at any of 
these shrines but that of Lincoln and that 
many, many years ago. But it did seem as 
though we were walking in the woods to- 
gether among the very oldest trees. I want 
to go to shrines with you soon. ' ' 

And Avanel asks me: "Do you think we 
will get on better in woods ? ' ' 

And so I answer, not quite to the point: 
"A tree a thousand years old has leaves in 
the spring, as green as when a sapling. But 
if my dust had lived to this hour, it would 
have been the semblance of a palsied man, a 
horror more than grave clothes. Such as I 
am, I pray to the God of Heaven that I may 
be the green leaf in your hair. ' ' 

May 16: — I find myself walking in the 
shadows, where there is neither Springfield 
"nor Jerusalem nor any other known place, 
where there is neither calendar nor clock nor 
sun. The clouds of meditation are beneath 
my feet, storm overhead. One flash of light- 
ning lasts for an eternity and the thunder 
roll is as long. 



140 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

May 17: — I walk with Avanel again 
through our town. As we pass beneath the 
splendid and soaring towers, we note the signs 
of the various citizens who occupy the shops, 
facing the street. As we pass the ladies' 
tailoring establishments, we see fancy dress 
and religious costuming, to be used for cere- 
monials such as the festival of Hunter Kelly. 
They are carefully made, these costumes, for 
permanent and individual use. Many people, 
men and women, pass us on the street well 
fitted out, splendid, yet realistic, off hand, 
casual, and unconcerned, citizens in all sorts 
of well fitting, brightly dyed ceremonial gear. 
It is rather the custom of the city to come out 
more and more gaily for the spring, summer 
and autumn. In the cold weather it is the 
idea to dress as of old and according to the 
customs of the United States, in routine gar- 
ments. 

And now, being light hearted, Avanel and 
I make an amusement of going the rounds of 
the more fancy ice-cream parlors. They bear 
the old names, Maldener's, Kutrakon's, Bon- 
ansinga's, Stuart's, and there is the beau- 
tiful place of Najim, the Syrian. Stuart's is 
conducted by a direct descendant of the origi- 
nal family, as also Bonansinga's. Some of 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 141 

the places are in the hands of new firms but 
keep the old names. 

The sign-painters' shops are a wilderness 
of bedevilment. They are almost official ex- 
tensions of the art department of the World 's 
Fair of the University of Springfield. They 
are full of everything that may be painted to 
bring rejoicing to the fastidious stranger. 

It is growing toward evening and my dear 
lady has signified that she Avill consent to 
eat with me in that restaurant room of glass, 
that high tower place, where she gave me my 
first view of the new city. And, as we walk 
that way, we are amazed at something as 
novel to her as to myself. We have been al- 
most noting it to one another all day. With 
glowering faces and ugly looks, two factions 
in costume are passing and re-passing one 
another. And there are threats of fist fights 
between the young men and some appoint- 
ments for real battles without gloves are ob- 
viously made, with those euphuisms that in 
the old day covered appointments for pistol 
deeds. 

There are two factions of aviators, one 
dressed somewhat in the color scheme of the 
robin, including the vest, which follows the 
red color of the breast of that bird. The rival 



142 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

faction are the Snobs, who are out with it, 
make no quibble about being snobs, and are 
costumed with hints of the wasp and bee. 
There are as many girls and women, as boys 
and men, in the Snob and Robin costumes. 
All this has sprung up from the ground in a 
few days and is not in the pageant and festi- 
val calendar of the city. The aviator's day 
for dressing up is in early October. But the 
surprise is not so much the new costumes as 
the increasing sharpness of the controversy. 
Most of the children of the Boone and Michael 
clans, rivals though they be, are dressed as 
Robins and expound to us their side of a com- 
plicated matter. The substance is that the 
city is liable to a riot over the use and mon- 
opoly of the flying machines by the Snobs, led 
by one John Nash, sometimes called *'Beau 
Nash," and the Snobs are defying their ene- 
mies and spoiling for a riot. While Avanel 
and I have our customary little dinner in 
what was once a quiet corner, two young 
Booneites we have previously interviewed, 
having finished their chocolate, come to us 
and roar their anger again in our ears and 
seek to recruit our good opinions, as they 
nerve themselves to subdue the Snobs and if 
necessary shoot holes in their machines. 
May 18 : — The costumes of the rival factions 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 143 

have disappeared from these streets. All 
noise and argument have disappeared. The 
city goes about the even tenor of its way. The 
papers are full of the social and military af- 
fairs of the Amazons and the Horseshoe 
Brotherhood and denunciations of the world's 
common enemy, Singapore. I am wonder- 
ing why I have never gone to Camp Lincoln 
to see these Amazons and Michaelites drill- 
ing in full panoply of war and wondering 
even more why the child Avanel is at the 
head of them. She must be a sort of '* daugh- 
ter of the regiment," as one may say, deco- 
rative royalty, with the real management in 
other hands. But I always speak in her pres- 
ence of military matters as though she were 
in actual command. Tonight I meet her near 
her home as she comes riding from Camp 
Lincoln on her white war pony. She is a cen- 
tauress. 

Not only is her pony white but every 
thread of her riding habit is white. I help 
her down from her pony, go through the en- 
tirely unnecessary motion of doing so, and we 
lead the tired steed around to the stable in the 
rear of the Boone cottage and old Boone is 
there, waiting to feed and water the creature. 
The father is ignored and the horse is spoken 



144 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

to by Avanel in terms of endearment. We 
go into the house and sit by that unlit 
fireplace and wait for Black Hawk to come 
in to dinner. All of which is, by the way, 
preliminary to the fact I wish here to 
record, that the tired Avanel draws from "her 
belt an old hunting knife and its heavy white 
sheath and puts it on the mantle with the 
unbuckled Avanel sword and sheath, then al- 
lows me to take them down, and answers my 
questions about the knife. 

''This is the hunting knife my remote an- 
cestor, Daniel Boone, carried into the wilder- 
ness of Kentucky in his first discovery of the 
blue grass region that was to him new Eden. 
, . . This hunting knife means more to me 
than pride in fighting blood. It may go 
through the heart of some cocaine-crazy crea- 
ture in far Asia. But it means that other 
thing to me, the sanctity of the log cabin, or 
the cottage which we must defend as Boone 
defended the first cabins in the blue grass. To 
him they were pavilions of new patriarchs, 
not barnyards or forts." 

May 19 : — By this time all the trees are put- 
ting forth their second leaves, and smaller 
blossoms than before the frost. But everyone 
is rejoicing for it is spring of a sort. The air 
IS filled with hovering branches in palest 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 146 

green, a good gift to man. The town knows 
it and walks abroad gaily, this morning of 
May nineteenth. 

Then, late in the afternoon, local war 
breaks out suddenly and we know nothing 
about the trees, and care less. It is a Spring- 
field utterly new and terrible to its citizens. 
The star chimes are not allowed to ring. I 
am with Comrade Avanel in the very top of 
the Truth Tower. The terrors of flight and 
pursuit sweep over the far sections of Spring- 
field given over to aviation fields, orchards 
and the like. 

When machines overtake each other there 
is, so far, no shooting or the like, only a 
veering to the right or left. It might be a 
game of tag, were it not for the symbolism 
in decoration put on by the two factions driv- 
ing the machines. There is a big death 's head 
painted near the front of every Snob machine, 
and the hunting knife of Daniel Boone 
painted on the front of every Robin Redbreast 
machine. 

Neither Black Hawk Boone nor Avanel has 
authorized any such use of this symbol. The 
whole threat and roaring are unauthorized 
by any of the leaders of factions. The 
** People" have escaped the leash. 

Avanel is the only reporter her father will 



146 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

trust tonight and she has come to the top 
room of the Truth Tower, because it is the 
observation and news gathering room for 
things that may be untangled from a tower. 
All the papers have made common cause to- 
night. All the telescopes are in use, looking to 
the borders just beyond the City Wall, the 
liorders of Morgan, Menard, Logan, Macon, 
Christian, Montgomery and Macoupin Coun- 
ties. The news is assembled and everything 
observed is explained by telephones from 
these regions and re-telephoned into the vari- 
ous offices and rewritten there and then tele- 
graphed to all the world that cares. News- 
gathering remains what it has been for a cen- 
tury and a half. Boone is at the opposite end 
of the phone from Avanel and the first definite 
effects of the threatened air-riot are to make 
that gentleman quite profane. 

The flying machines were at first not 
public property. But so much crowding 
out of the truly skilled flyers came about 
by the monopolists with buried gold, that ma- 
chines are now rented to private citizens by 
the state or city for a nominal fee and deposit 
for damages. To enter the examinations in 
the autumn and to fly for the year is, in 
theory, one of the privileges of highly skilled, 
athletic people. Our friend, Portia, the Sing- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 14f 

ing Aviator, is with us tonight and help- 
ing unravel the story of the rise of fac- 
tions. And the gentle creature has written of 
the uppermost blue and of the dawn clouds 
and of the map of the earth and of sailing 
around the curve of the earth. This young 
girl is appalled to be obliged to take sides in 
the controversy and enlist for a possible battle 
of mere children. The most famous aviators 
on each sid,e come from the High Schools. 
She does not want to paint war insignia upon 
her machine. But already her literary imita- 
tors have done so. Her three most sedulous 
apes in the High School, John Nash and Find- 
lay Bryson and Margaret Rand, who have di- 
luted her innocent and heroic songs, turning 
them into society verses, now demand that 
she put the death 's head upon her machine, or 
lose them as disciples. And Portia is appalled 
to find that the names she once chose in sport 
to classify the machines are now used to rep- 
resent actual factions in the threatened war. 
The Robin Redbreast and Carrier-Pigeon 
machines are all on the side of the Robins, 
and the Snobs are subdivided into the Don 
Juan, the Raider, the Flamboyant, the Brah- 
min and the Bird of Paradise. It is the ex- 
ceedingly high priced Brahmin and Bird of 
Paradise machines that make the trouble. 



148 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

People go to the High Schools past their 
twenty-first year. And the town is first torn 
up by High School pupils, children of the 
local multimillionaires, such of them as still 
have brains and body enough to go through 
the rigid examinations for aviation. Thesd 
children of men with buried gold are again 
and again at the top of the aviation waiting- 
lists. This is especially exasperating because 
having a private fortune is proclaimed in 
every political speech to be against the Con- 
stitution of the United States and the Consti- 
tution of the State of Hlinois. 

And so youngsters of the Wicked Stand- 
ings, the Cheerful Radleys, the Arrogant 
Rocks, the Fat Zebeskys, the Nervous Kus- 
ukos, the Slick Slack Kopenskys, the Shrewd 
Sims family, and all that set try successfully 
to monopolize the priceless Brahmin and Bird 
of Paradise. Their sinecure is defended in 
silly verse by Findlay Bryson, John Nas^i, 
sometimes called ''Beau Nash," and Mar- 
garet Rand. 

May 20: — Many of those parading the 
streets in the Redbreast costume are skill- 
ful High School seniors, young men and 
women, licensed graduate aviators, whose 
machine rent-money has been refused through 
the quibbling of the corrupted authorities. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 149 

The only work left open to them is drilling for 
the work of mail carriers for the International 
Government. Word comes to the news room 
at the top of the Truth Tower that all through 
the counties touching the Springfield wall, 
wherever Brahmin and Bird of Paradise ma- 
chines reach the ground, the farmers taking 
Springfield affairs a little more seriously than 
we do, proceed to set torch to the wings. 

May 21 : — The Robin Redbreast people can 
work, at least, and their costume has now 
flooded the offices. There is such a tension 
everywhere (without the least thing really 
happening) and the streets are so full of 
marching Robins that the young sports say 
today that they have surrendered. There is 
much talk of peace and sentimental prattle 
about our dear little town and slush about all 
calling each other ''cousin" again. But just 
before midnight The Boone Ax gets out an 
extra, charging that the Brahmin and Bird of 
Paradise machines are tied up to the snob 
children by long time leases and there is not 
one but still remains in the hands of the owner 
of a secret fortune or some directly obligated 
minion of the same. 

May 22:— The sky is all gold today. The 
Snob machines reappear, defiantly gilded, and 
on the front of every one is painted the name 



150 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

of the Snob using it, and after his name the 
word : — ' ' Owner. ' ' And young John Nash has 
taken the fatal step and added a terrible ele- 
ment to what was before but a family row 
that was leading nowhere in particular. He 
has decorated his machine with green jade 
eyes and pictures of the green and speckled 
lotus of the Cocaine Buddha of Singapore and 
thereby added the final insult of ** interna- 
tional and national treason" and utterly 
changed the spirit of the fight. All day the 
gilded machines go by unmolested among the 
angry Pigeons and Eobins, but as Black 
Hawk Boone says in a big type evening edi- 
torial: ''John Nash has tattooed himself 
with treason f orevermore and it remains to be 
seen whether every gilded wing stands for 
treason.** 

May 23: — The University set today bring 
forth legislation which is drawn up and spon- 
sored by John Boat and St. Friend, the Giver 
of Bread. This emergency legislation, backed 
by the immediate surrender and burning of 
the arrogant leases, appears to insure uni- 
form rents for all machines of whatever class. 
The fear of the curse of treason has made all 
the gold-foil faction meek as rabbits for a 
day. And so they consent to the cancellation 
pf all previous lists and papers of all sorts 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 151 

and the re-enlistment of all aviators once a 
month. They consent to the proposal that it 
be made a jail offense to use the same ma- 
chine longer than three months. Machines 
must be re-rented in order as registered. No 
classification to be made as to value of ma- 
chine, or gold-foil on the wings, or type of 
machine: — every aviator to take his chance. 
St. Friend thinks that he and Justice of the 
Peace, John Boat, have done well. Certainly 
this afternoon, according to the new arrange- 
ment, it is as in Utopia and the rich and the 
poor, the privileged and unprivileged, have 
equal chances in the air. 

We are alone in the Truth Tower, my 
love and I, and we are talking of St. 
Friend, who has brought this all about, 
and Avanel sends for him, to take in the view 
of the sunset with us, if he pleases, and wait 
with us for the returning star chimes. The 
evening and its beauty, after such days of 
empty stampede and panic, move my lady 
Avanel to deeper words than are her habit. 
And of the coming guest, she whispers: — 
''St. Friend represents, almost in spite of 
himself, the idea of thousands of laymen, that 
few priests have represented: — the general 
idea of religion, under a church roof, with 
one's fellow human beings. The idea stands 



152 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

in contrast to any worship chained to a spe- 
cial list of teachings. St. Friend champions 
freedom, yet his kind of freedom goes to 
prayer, of its own choice, with no theological 
or creed fences, to what he calls, 'the blessed 
company of all faithful people. ' ' ' 

St. Friend comes to us, just before the star 
chimes begin to ring. He steps out from the 
noiseless elevator and is before us while we 
are speaking. Avanel pets him as she does 
her father when she is being especially good, 
and the aged guest likes it, of course. He 
sits in the largest and easiest chair which 
is reserved for guests in The Boone Ax room, 
and he hunches forward, a stooped giant. He 
looks through the top of his eyebrows at 
Avanel and he keeps time to his armchair 
talk, beating the arms of the chair slowly with 
his open hands, according to a habit from of 
old. He rubs his face and his old forehead 
with his palms as though to wake up and 
deliberately brings a flush to his forehead. 
By incessantly beating the chair and hum- 
ming and hawing he seems to beat up a kind 
of nervous strength from some hidden source 
in the air and talks with increasing animation 
about the ''strike" or "riot" or "whatever 
it may be called" and mentions with great 
complacency his measures against it. And 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 153 

now another curtain seems to lift from the 
soul of Avanel. The spirit of prophecy is 
upon her. The old man listens with fixed 
eyes. The youth of his immortal soul seems 
to me, in this hour of revelation, to depend 
upon clear speaking on the part of this young 
voice. She is denouncing with endless words 
the ironies of flying and material dreams, 
yet with girl slang and wit mixed in with 
italL 



CHAPTEE X 

THE END OF THE FLYING MACHINE RIOTS, PANICS, 
ALAKUMS AND EXCURSIONS. 

May 24: — Today with that same light in his 
eye, St. Friend preaches back at Avanel the 
sermon she preached to him last evening with, 
of course, many turns of his own. I sit with 
her quite close to the pulpit of the Cathedral. 
The place is packed to the doors. 

"You all know my aversion to the motion 
picture. It is one element in the university 
about which I differ from the majority of the 
board. If I express an equal distrust of the 
flying machine, you will say I am probably 
against all mechanical advancement. 

''Such advancement is but a qualified gift 
to man. The best wings are spirit wings, how- 
ever we fly with them. It is better to be like 
Shelley than to have the glory of Langley and 
Wilbur and Orville Wright. 

*'I deeply mourn that Springfield has been 
almost ready to bleed and die over the flying- 
machine issue. I am sorry that either our 
good or our bad people are obsessed. The 
father of the souls of many of our young 

154< 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 155 

people seems the telegraph, the mother, the 
railroad. There does not appear to be a fila- 
ment of their minds made of anything more 
human than the uncanny filament of the in- 
candescent light. "When they peer into the 
future of our city, they imagine our optical 
factories and the like, hard at work produc- 
ing things like the new lens gun but more in- 
genious. The odor of acids is ever on their 
garments, never the incense of some future 
Christmas day. They envy the discovery 
of the three new infinitesimal elements by 
the chemists of Singapore. No wonder some 
of them finally turn to the green and speckled 
lotus and the cocaine Buddha. 

"The service this type of imagination has 
done our city is calculable, definite. People 
moved by it have made our factories the most 
notable of the kind in this region of the Uni- 
ted States. And they give us also an airship 
of the mind that carries us far into the future 
and we return heavily ladened. We examine 
the treasure. It is a funny little creature 
called 'man,' carrying an extraordinary world 
conquering device, some amorphous, dubious 
toy, akin to the ancient phonograph. 

*'Let us agree that whatever carries bread 
across the world is of service. Whatever puts 
a roof over the head of democracy is worth 



156 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

while. Whatever puts clothing on the back of 
mankind must be respected. And because 
they fetch and carry well, such gifts as the 
dragons of Eric Hedder are not to be gainsaid 
in this place. 

"But let us not hesitate to examine such 
devices and consider where this matter of 
toy-making is going to lead us. Will the mil- 
lennial future be a tin and wire world, an elec- 
trical experiment station, and no more? 

"We compare it to the automobile. The ad- 
vantage is all on the side of the flying ma- 
chine. The automobile is a sort of racing hog. 
The flying machine is, by comparison, a wild 
swan. And, crossing world oceans, it works 
for world unity. ' ' 

Avanel 's face is taking on the deepest crim- 
son I have ever seen upon it. About every 
tenth sentence is her own. St. Friend laughs, 
the congregation supposes, at his own wit. 
He continues: — 

"And for the fatness of the overfed auto- 
mobile driver we substitute the leanness of 
the bird-boned boy or girl aviator. The fly- 
ing machine is a representative of the peril- 
ous privilege of physical aspiration. But 
what goes up must come down. The aviator 
is sure of a return journey. Portia will tell 
us, in an exalted mood, that the aviator is up 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 157 

there to investigate the great milky way for 
us. She will tell us that clouds and sky now 
enter into the pleasure landscape of democ- 
racy. She makes it plain to us that the tops 
of the sunset towers, of the man-built Truth 
Tower, are not the top of the Universe. 

*' 'The Aviator,' she says, *is our delegate 
to the congress of planets.' Yet if we agree 
with every song of Portia, there is even more 
to be said for looking out upon the fields from 
no higher point of vantage than the footpath, 
if we be taking such a pilgrimage as that of 
St. Scribe of the Shrines, beginning with the 
first shrine, the Tomb of Lincoln, and pray- 
ing the prayers St. Scribe has written down 
for us, as we go around the world to the one 
hundred shrines of the one hundred religions. 
We may take part of that journey by steam- 
ship and airship but it is when we are afoot 
we gain wisdom." And so St. Friend, the 
Giver of Bread, continues upon his favorite 
theme of "The Pilgrimage" and urges upon 
us that life is a glorious adventure and was 
never meant to be a matter of merely mechani- 
cal achievement or cold calculation for physi- 
cal power. And Avanel's heightened color 
continues. 

But what is the real Avanel? As we leave 
church, we look up and she shrieks with de- 



158 THE GOLDEN ,BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

light. Every known variety of machine is in 
long line, is in cavalry formations in which 
she delights, some of which she uses with her 
own Amazons, and she shouts the orders 
and claps her hands and tries to antici- 
pate each new maneuver with her orders, like 
chanticleer crowing, and ordering the sun to 
rise. She stands amid the purple cottages 
like a fairy in a bed of violets and it is as 
though all the butterflies of the Sangamon 
Valley land had become gorgeous giants for 
us and were flying for our delight. For over- 
head friend and foe are celebrating truce, if 
not peace, and the whole remaining populace 
is in the street to behold it. 

May 25 : — I am reading in the Truth Tower, 
in the newspaper lookout room, last even- 
ing's Boone Ax with Avanel and talking it 
over with her. It seems that the inside politi- 
cal whispers convey to the intelligent the fact 
that Mayo Sims has sent out his dragnet: — 
his jesters, his druggists, his coffee house 
wits, to talk among the older people and get 
their youngsters in hand. And he has been 
strongly abetted by the arrogant Rock family. 

The arrogant Rock family have other, if 
limited, claims to consideration. They have 
rightly prided themselves on being experts 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIEg:.D 169 

on the coal question. Some of the most of- 
fensive of them are indeed learned in this 
matter. It remains a family talent and accom- 
plishment, when nothing else can be said for 
these people. For many a day, and indeed 
for two generations, on behalf of the city and 
state, they have been flying from mine to 
mine in their working hours, giving expert 
advice or exercising stern authority, accord- 
ing to their specific offices. 

The Rock family began as the Michaelites 
began. For a long time it was a tradition that 
every boy of the Rock clan must dig coal with 
the pick for a certain number of years, and 
belong to the Miner's Union. But these peo- 
ple gradually rose from labor-union officers, 
who dug, in a nominal way, to able but 
unwholesome fops who would rather be 
hanged than dirty their own hands in coal. 

They hate the Michaelites in a very special 
way for going doggedly and literally on with 
their horseshoeing and hammering out 
swords. But the Rock family know when they 
have had enough and hate the open accusation 
of Singaporianism that is the result of the 
antics of * ' Beau Nash. ' ' 

It seems that ''Beau Nash" has become 
a fanatic, he has been initiated into the 



160 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

devilish religion, and he defies the commit- 
tee from Mayo Sims, Slick Slack Kopens- 
ky, and the Rocks, that has subdued all 
the other young representatives of the flying 
snobs. He says he will do as he pleases, and 
do it soon, that this is a land of religious 
liberty, that he chooses the green glass god 
of Singapore, of his own free will, and there 
is no treason in it, that he will have the law 
on whoever molests him. 

Now there are shouting and cries below 
and there are jinglings of all the phones in 
the lookout rooms and when we answer one 
we are told that Nash has already ascended 
and is coming from the west. Almost in- 
stantly we see him and then he is directly 
above the Truth Tower, circling, going up, 
and circling and going down, while his own 
old faction, in the street, grow angrier every 
minute. He has painted his whole machine 
the Singaporian green and there are all the 
special signs and seals of Singapore he can 
put there, upon the body of his machine, and 
finally, in insult to our virtuous city, he flies 
low that we may see them and then flies high 
that we may hate him. 

But on his third descent, a Robin Redbreast 
machine, with all speed on, sweeps up from 
the north. Nash expects a threat, but the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 161 

man in the other machine begins to shoot 
at Nash, just as he is above Washington Park, 
and down comes the dead man by the Wash- 
ington Park Pavilion, with a terrific crash 
of broken wings, and absurd Singapore ha3 
her first American martyr. 

The newspaper people come pouring into 
the Truth Tower. We all send the story to the 
papers as we can. It seems that the avenger 
is the son of the Mayor. It is * ' Crawling Jim 
Kopensky," the new President of the Robin 
Redbreast flying association. He has been 
president twenty-four hours and has made 
haste to vindicate his office. 

Of course there will be no prosecution of 
Jim. In the first place he is the son of the 
Mayor. In the second place he is now a news- 
paper hero. In the third place he has removed 
the blasphemer, hated alike by those with mil- 
lions in gold and alcohol buried away, and 
those with teetotal tendencies and no money 
but their legal salaries. 

May 26: — Everyone has forgotten the fly- 
ing machine feud. An Anti-Singapore panic 
is on. St. Friend has started a series of week- 
day sermons against Singapore in the Cathe- 
dral and Rabbi Ezekiel is doing the same in 
his Temple and they are moving all secular 
forums to co-operate. And The Boone Ax 



162 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

whacks and chops at the issue for no one 
hates a Singaporian better than Black Hawk 
Boone, the roaring cinnamon bear. It is hard 
to make out any justification of a war at this 
exact hour. 

When, in his youth, St. Friend made the Pil- 
grimage of St. Scribe he heard certain strange 
political talk near the dazzling temple of the 
cocaine Buddha of Singapore. Three half- 
English Eurasians were deep in future world 
politics. This conversation temporarily 
spoiled his meditations on the real and beau- 
tiful Prince Gautama, which otherwise con- 
tinued throughout the whole of Asia. Ever 
since that day, St. Friend has been giving his 
attention to the Japanese and Chinese de- 
nunciations of the Singaporians, especially 
since those denunciations have been so stoutly 
re-echoed by Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the 
Second, the greatest American representative 
in the legislature of the World Government. 
That tremendous hall has rung with the ham- 
merblows of Michael, the Blacksmith, against 
international treason, the arrogant Singa- 
porian cry of ''States Rights." 

St. Friend and the Rabbi and Boone, backed 
by the Board of Education, proclaim that 
they have been studying the wily local policy 
of the man from Singapore. It seems to be 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 163 

first, to promote confusion. St. Friend de- 
clares that the stranger has incited ''by pecu- 
liar and devious means" all the recklessness 
of the children of the city and that "the de- 
fiance of Beau Nash was a test case ' ' and that 
"the man from Singapore hoped, if the Beau 
survived, to build a green glass temple here. ' ' 
The man from Singapore is really a public 
benefit judged by the mere surface of things, 
since he is the scapegoat for all our recent 
fights and fevers. But no man touches him. 
He goes on teaching in the University, un- 
molested. His classes in the Malay Peninsula 
languages and literature are well attended hy 
the sons and daughters of those who denounce 
him. Many wait for any slip of the tongue or 
wrong turn of the voice and cannot catch him. 

They cannot help liking the jolly old Malay 
lore about things which have nothing to do 
with politics and which are the whole theme 
of the brown professor's discourses. 

May 27: — Boone and his faction have 
slacked up on the Singaporian scent and are 
back on the old argument. Boone declares 
that the University must be put more firmly 
in the position of censor of the administration, 
and after all there are, by actual count, a 
larger group of those, supposed to have buried 
gold and buried alcohol, still using flying ma- 



164 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

chines than the list of our ' ' common people. ' ' 
The Snobs have merely put on the Robin 
Redbreast uniform. And he boldly prints the 
list of those morally certain to have much 
buried alcohol and gold but puts it so deftly 
there is no risk of suit. And so, to make good, 
the City Hall starts an informal flying festival 
this afternoon and crowds anyone who can 
fly at all into machines that come pouring 
down from Chicago in. response to orders 
from our City Hall. But they are all Robin 
Redbreast machines. 

May 28: — The Mayor is winning. Simply 
by giving everyone a ride who can pos- 
sibly be persuaded to ride, he has out- 
numbered in one day, by actual count of tem- 
porary flyers, the active Boone constituency, 
and what is called: ''The Moral Issue" has 
completely disappeared. But Boone turns 
today to a personal issue. He gives all pos- 
sible attention through coffee-house hench- 
men, and openly, in The Boone. Ax, to the dis- 
crediting of ''Crawling Jim." And true or 
false, the stories are whispered around the 
town about Jim that will spoil him as a politi- 
cal asset and ruin his glory as the punisher 
of "Beau Nash." 

He has been guilty of certain cruelties to 
•animals and children. It is whispered that the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 165 

police have clearly established it. They are 
^keeping the records. They are hoping they 
may some day have the freedom to act. And 
so Boone gets Jim ''where he lives," for 
rumor hurts Jim to the soul. Since he is him- 
self a peddler of little scandals, it is his world. 
He is said to be a carrier of everything in the 
way of poisoned small-talk to that strange 
beauty, Mara, the daughter of Singapore. 
When the small talk turns against him, as he 
gathers it, he droops and mopes indeed for 
an hour or two. 

But he is still president of the Robin Red- 
breast Club and he takes his consolation this 
afternoon by extraordinary evolutions in the 
air, near where he killed Beau Nash. He goes 
through as many curves as a pigeon bred 
for flying tricks. And it is said on the street 
that the Robin Redbreast Club will keep him 
in office out of respect for his luck. He has 
always been a reckless but endlessly success- 
ful trick flyer. So by midnight Jim has won 
the cheap rumor battle in the coffee houses 
and Yellow Dance Halls and drug stores. 
And why not? Boone should be in better 
business. 

May 29: — The town wakes up this morn- 
ing to find the Snobs asserting themselves 
again, though now it is the parents and grand- 



166 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

parents that are more at fault, not the high 
school aviators. The families on the list Boone 
has published, along with their sympathizers, 
have in the night put gold-foil on conspicuous 
portions of the cupolas of their cottage roofs 
or the roofs of their club houses. 

May 30: — There is a scandal in the Micro- 
scope and Telescope Factory. Old Montague 
Rock is one of the chief men of the fac- 
tory. Patricia Anthony, the Proud, is leading 
a strike against him because of a certain con- 
tract, which he long ago secured, for lenses 
which have been delivered for over a year in 
a steady stream to a firm on the western 
coast. It now transpires that these people 
were agents for the Singaporian Government 
and Patricia Anthony is morally certain, 
Singapore is using these lenses in the new 
mysterious war machine which is a step be- 
yond the lens gun. The Singaporians are 
presumed to be laying up these machines 
already, for the day of Singaporian rebellion 
against the World Government. 

Old Montague Rock has always had an ir- 
ritating style of address and he has made a 
speech to the strikers in a fashion that has 
not helped toward peace one little bit. He has 
said this very morning that the Singaporians 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 167 

are the souls of honor and most admirable, 
aside frcrm their religion, with which, of 
course, he has nothing to do. And that the}" 
are the height of Asiatic aristocracy at all 
times. He has said our city should be flattered 
to furnish them with lenses for guns for local 
police work in Asia. And so he continues to 
paraphrase his speech in conversations with 
reporters at Fifth and Monroe and in Coe's 
Book Store, and wherever he meets his 
friends and enemies, through the whole after- 
noon. 

So The Boone Ax advocates a strikers' pa- 
rade for tomorrow afternoon and Boone 
strains his whole credit and prestige in the 
city to make it a success. Those societies, etc. 
that are to be the principal decorative features 
are listed, in this afternoon's papers, and the 
line of march is printed. They are to assem- 
l)le on Second and Monroe, near the old arse- 
nal, and march south on Second to Capital 
Avenue, east on Capital Avenue to Fifth, 
north on Fifth to Monroe, east on Monroe to 
Sixth, etc. 

May 31 : — The Anti King Coal Parade goes 
by this afternoon with many surprises, not 
in the official list of splendors. The event was 
scheduled to be called: ''The Parade of the 



168 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Striking Lens Factory" but Montague Rock 
being often called King Coal, the other title 
gets into the headlines. 

First, between girls on horseback, carrying 
the Star Spangled Banner and the Interna- 
tional flag, rides Patricia Anthony, fore- 
woman of the lens factory, and, after her, 
march or ride the strikers, in all possible glit- 
tering and glassy spangles, to show their 
trade and their gaiety. And then comes King 
Coal in chains. He is presumed to be an ex- 
cellent portrait of the head of the Rock 
family. He is built of actual coal, in parts, 
and black pasteboard also. Elegant minions 
of King Coal are impersonated by masked 
people, in caricatures of the fastidious Singa- 
porian costume, and they wear light chains 
that, nevertheless, hold them in leash to the 
great image. 

Everyone jeers with emphasis when King 
Coal goes by, and many people on the street 
sing and shout: — ''The Song for All Strik- 
ers" composed by Portia, the Singing Avi- 
ator, for this especial parade. 

There is an interminable miscellany of 
floats, reiterating with less and less force, 
the general theme of the occasion, and I am 
about tired out. Then Avanel comes by at the 
head of her Amazons and Michaelites, all rid- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPMNGFIELD 169 

ing milk white ponies. It is the first time I 
have seen Avanel in command, and Boone did 
not mention this cavalcade in his paper. 
Indeed, it is remarked upon as a most 
arbitrary use of military forces that are 
accepted by the International Government. 
Avanel is every inch the commander and, 
for all she is so slender and young, looks 
the immortal, Athena, leading forth her 
city. There must be something, not rumored 
in the coffefe houses, or this demonstra- 
tioii in force would not be permitted this mile 
of riders. Their faces are not masked as were 
those of the ancient Ku Klux Klan but the 
costume is, indeed, as singular. It is, for both 
the men and the women, in the pattern of the 
old hunter and trapper outfit of coonskin cap 
and fringed shirt, jacket, leggins and moc- 
casins. But it is all white leather, with 
touches of long white fur. The girl's cos- 
tumes are cut a bit like the conventional rid- 
ing habit. The dazzling whiteness would not 
have been possible before the days of smoke 
consumers and dustless streets. I behold an 
avalanche of thundering snow. 

It is late in the evening, and I am helping 
the tired Avanel dismount from her pony. 
Then we sit together by her unlit fireplace. 
She has put the hunting knife and the sword 



170 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

back on the mantle and they seem but family- 
relics, and the parade seems but a tale she has 
told me, and her horse but a thought that she 
rode today. I walk home through the mid- 
night, under newly blossoming trees. The 
rich and heavy perfume of the Apple-Ama- 
ranth flowers, that are looming delicately 
against the moon, sweeps around me. It is 
as though every cluster were a censer from 
heaven, devised by a lazy and luxurious 
angel. 



CHAPTER XI 

MATTERS TOUCHING ST. FRIEND, THE GIVER OF 
BREAD, AND HIS ORDER OF THE STRICT OBSERV- 
ANCE AND HIS ORDER OF THE LIBERAL 
OBSERVANCE. 

June 1, 2018 : — In the capital of Illinois, in 
this year of grace, St. Friend is a healer of 
the body and soul. He is more of a philos- 
opher than the fuming Black Hawk Boone, 
that is, he has a cooler disposition. Yet Boone 
heals by hard maxims, given with that lovely 
fruit, the Amaranth-Apple. St. Friend heals 
by sermons and prayers and the pictured 
parables, the rituals envisaged and illumi- 
nated in the celobration of the Office of the 
Blessed Bread. 

The real name of our saint, which no one 
ever hears, is Hugh Adams Matheney. He is, 
away and beyond, the oldest of the Board of 
Education or of any of the leaders of the city. 
He has little iire in his blood, but has still the 
greatest reserve battery of nervous force. He 
was, even as a little boy, a protege and 
disciple of St. Scribe of the Shrines, who was 
then in the height of his glory as a leader of 

171 



172 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

our town. He preceded St. Friend as the domi- 
nating figure of the Cathedral of St. Peter and 
St. Paul and handed down to him and to the 
whole city the old doctrine, with a new em- 
phasis, that the whole human race is the mys- 
tical body of Christ, soon to be raised from 
the dead. On his mother's side St. Friend is a 
descendant of a long line of members of the 
Church of the Disciples. On his father's side 
his ancestors are notable in several lines, 
for instance, the Matheneys of Springfield. 
The original Matheneys put up one of the 
first three settlers' log cabins ever erected in 
this county. The Adams strain is from New 
Harmony, Indiana. There they were bakers 
for several generations. The .cottage of St. 
Friend has his baker's coat of arms painted 
over the little front door, over the tremendous 
open fireplace, and in the little dining room. 
On one slender pole, in front of his cottage, 
all of his family flags are flying. The most im- 
portant of the flags, in the estimation of St. 
Friend, is that of the clan of these same 
Adams people from New Harmony. 

St. Friend is the last of his actual clan to be 
a baker, though the town is full of his first 
and second cousins; — and third cousins, in- 
deed, that claim him proudly. He has adopted 
a son, an orphan boy, early apprenticed to 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 173 

his flour barrels by the school authorities, a 
boy of Thibetan ancestry and one of a small 
local group of Thibetans. He is now grown. 
Except for ceremonial occasions he has long 
graduated from baking. He is occupied in 
designing more exquisite and slender sunset 
towers, of the school of Louis H. Sullivan and 
Frank Lloyd Wright, to add one more circle 
to the outer ring, when purple cottages and 
old buildings have been sufficiently cleared 
away. He is known as the ** young St. Friend" 
or the ''Thibetan boy." 

When I have passed him on the street, I have 
observed him muttering to himself or occa- 
sionally walking and arguing with the other 
Thibetans. He looks every inch the stranger, 
with square face and almond eyes, and skin 
brickdust red, with heavy bronze beneath it. 

The sister of St. Friend, living in the same 
cottage, a mild, ghostly creature, creeping 
about, is more than a centenarian. She re- 
members the celebration of Armistice Day, 
November 11, 1918. She was then a baby in 
her father's arms, and held out her hands to 
catch the falling showers of confetti thrown 
from the high buildings. She thought it was 
enow. 

St. Friend graduated from the Hay-Ed- 
wards school. He went through one of Spring- 



174 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

field's High Schools. He continued on for 
a while through the Municipal University of 
the town. He attended a college of his faith 
at Washington, D. C. He then became a novice 
of the order of St. Scribe of the Shrines and 
took that discipline as literally as possible. 

St. Friend is a close correspondent of the 
hundred radical bishops who are, often in 
remoter fashion, followers of St. Scribe of 
the Shrines, while at the same time they are 
conserving the results of the Church Revolu- 
tion. Two of these bishops, the present lead- 
ers of the order, were young pilgrims with 
him when he made the journey commanded 
by St. Scribe, the pilgrimage around the 
world to the one hundred shrines of the one 
hundred religions, beginning with the Tomb 
of Lincoln. The boy returned while St. Scribe 
was still in his prime and a rousing, domi- 
nating figure in the city. The boy became the 
private secretary of the Saint. When the 
saint was an old man, the disciple was his con- 
fidential adviser and finally, when the great 
man departed this life, the office of leading 
the Cathedral flock naturally devolved upon 
the disciple. It was about this time that the 
rumor began to move among the people that 
the departed St. Scribe was once Hunter 
Kelly and it slowly became the fashion, with 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 175 

some of the more fanciful citizens, to speak of 
Hunter Kelly-St. Scribe as though they were 
one guardian spirit. St. Friend was offered 
the headship of the order of St. Scribe but he 
refused it and, without abandoning his place 
and the prescribed forms and prayers of this 
discipline, he set up quite a separate order of 
his own, the Order of the Blessed Bread of the 
Strict Observance, and today he has pro- 
claimed from the Cathedral pulpit the setting 
up of a more popular order, of the more 
liberal observance, and though there is much 
not yet cleared up by the sermon, Avanel is 
resolved to join, if possible, and recruit me, if 
it may be done. 

This is the history of The Order of The 
Strict Observance : — For many years St. 
Friend has given himself, in true devotion, as 
a member of the Springfield Associated Chari- 
ties, to provide for the handful of defectives, 
drug fiends, and those outlaws who are now 
classed with them by common consent: — the 
unskilled laborers. St. Friend finds in his 
heart a great Franciscan pity for them. He 
finds there a sharp social rebellion that there 
should be any outlaws or helpless ones what- 
ever. So he has become, by acclamation, the 
perpetual head of the Associated Charities, 
and these feverish wanton ones have been 



176 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

cheerfully left to his over-solicitude. The 
entire contingent of the socially crippled cuts 
as small a figure on the general horizon of the 
city as did the group of the professional pau- 
pers in the days when blind men turned hand 
organs. The educational machinery is such 
that within the double city walls, built long 
ago by Ralph Adams Cram, the so-called ' ' ex- 
ploited" have long been kept out. People in 
general are well-fed, super-skilled laborers. 
And they have about all the carnal bread and 
all the carnal circuses they can well digest. 

But St. Friend, who in his youth wept for 
every fallen sparrow till he could weep no 
more, has long maintained his Order of the 
Blessed Bread of the Strict Observance for 
those left behind in the race, generally degen- 
erate sons and daughters of old settlers. The 
order is properly called the ''Brotherhood of 
the Blessed Bread." Those who join eat of a 
bread baked from a special Sangamon County 
wheat, planted between the inner and the 
outer wall by some of the various sects of the 
Flower Religion and the Park Religion. St. 
Friend cares not what sect plants the wheat, 
so it be planted by those who believe in de- 
mocracy and prayer. 

After due vigil, the bread is skilfully baked 
by the Thibetan boy, or other chosen members 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 177 

of the society. Those who eat of it are ex- 
horted, but not commanded, to take the oath 
before John Boat, for the bread, till now, has 
been primarily intended for the Brotherhood 
of the Strict Observance. 

This oath before John Boat or other co- 
operating justice of the peace is printed in 
the little book of devotion that goes with the 
Strict Observance. The book and oath are in- 
tended for the most hopeless derelicts only. 
Presumably the bread is eaten for the first 
time by these, after the oath is administered. 

The gray-headed old justice of the peace 
furnished the idea himself, when he and St. 
Friend were young men, and St. Friend kept 
the copy of the oath and brooded upon it long 
before he felt it politic to found the order. 
John Boat had observed, in his experience as 
a notary, that men, who seem but animated 
putrescence, still regard their sworn word in 
court. It is the last chance to put iron into 
them. This thought in mind, the oath is ad- 
ministered with the solemnity that went into 
the old monastic vows. From the many who 
have been given life by the oath, St. Friend 
has taken great assurance that he is on the 
road to a tremendous social amelioration. 

June 2: — Because Avanel and I have de- 
cided to join the more liberal observance of 



178 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

the Order of the Blessed Bread, though we, 
as yet, know little about it, she is eager to 
show to me the occasion of the administering 
of the oath of the Strict Observance. This 
Monday morning we are taking the back 
bench in the shadowy corner of the justice 
court to watch the older ceremonial. Now 
most oaths in court are rattled off like parrot 
words, but to John Boat this is an occasion 
when he is a priest after the order of Mel- 
chizedek. He gives a seeming dignity to the 
most carping and exacting demand of the 
pledge, reading it line upon line. Blue-faced 
Surto Hurdenburg, the derelict, echoes him 
with full and honest intent, repeating every 
line after the learned court with great respect 
and devotion. 

This is the text of the pledge : — 

State of Illinois 

City of Springfield, 
June 2, 2018. 

I, Surto Hurdenburg, accepting the lord- 
ship of Christ, do solemnly swear, by the ever- 
living God, that from this time henceforth 
I will support the Constitution of the World 
Government, the Constitution of the United 
States, the Laws of Illinois, the Ordinances 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 179 

of Springfield, that I will faithfully observe 
and keep inviolate the moral laws of the com- 
munity; that I will carefully and faithfully 
observe my duty to my neighbor, recognizing 
his rights at all times ; that I will endeavor to 
become an expert workman and member of a 
guild ; that I will faithfully, honestly and con- 
scientiously exercise my rights of franchise 
as a member of my guild and a citizen of the 
community, with a firm determination to 
bring about the best results for clean and 
honest government, and that I will devote as 
much strength as possible to the study of 
civic reform, examining at all times the opin- 
ions of clean-minded radical citizens and act- 
ing on them according to the dictates of my 
conscience. I specifically promise to abstain 
from motion-picture shows, yellow dance 
halls, bad women, alcoholic liquors and nar- 
cotics, and to denounce and work against in 
every way possible the traffic in Singaporian 
cocaine. 

Further and finally, I promise to eat the 
Blessed Bread of this Order of the Strict Ob- 
servance, according to the manner and at the 
times laid down in the Book of Devotion, and 
to follow the discipline for body and soul 
there prescribed and imposed for the good of 



180 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

the order and the health and well-being of 
my city. 

(Signed) Surto Hurdenbnrg. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 
Second Day of June, 2018. 
(Seal) John Boat 
Notary Public. 

I conclude that, in the light of Springfield 
life as I have seen it these strange days, it will 
be easier for such as Surto Hurdenburg to 
keep the more literal specifications of the 
pledge, such as the ban on motion pictures, 
than to enter into the deep mazes of citizen- 
ship with judgment. He will keep close to 
St. Friend and the order, who hate the films, 
and thereby be able to let the films alone. 
Most photoplays outside of the educational 
buildings or beyond the immediate jurisdic- 
tion of the "World 's Fair authorities are shown 
on the right or left of the sauntering corridors 
opening on the Yellow Dance Halls on the 
same floors. Here half -hour lengths of film are 
run through, when the crowd sweeps in to 
rest. The merits of the exceedingly artistic 
studio and theatre, called ^'The Egyptian 
Photoplay Association," headed by Gwen- 
dolyn Charles and Rabbi Terence Ezekiel re- 
main unappreciated by St. Friend and the 
members of the Order of the Strict Observ- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 181 

ance. This in spite of the fact that the Photo- 
play Association in question now has in 
charge most of those exquisite and unim- 
peachable film theatres of the University 
World's Fair and several other worthwhile 
film-theatre circuits in Central Illinois. * * The 
Egyptian Photoplay Association" will rent 
slightly worn films to Yellow Dance Halls, 
after first runs in these others, and thereby 
make the films in the eyes of the Order of the 
Strict Observance, mere devil's nets for fish. 

So, though the highly esteemed Rabbi Ter- 
ence Ezekiel tries to act as mediator, there is 
eternal war between the fiery Gwendolyn 
Charles and this saint. 

For a long time back truly aesthetic and 
truly educational motion pictures have been 
shown in the school and University class 
rooms. Many of them are scientific and his- 
torical records and renderings. In the odd 
hours of loafing through these three months 
I have noted many of them as of the best 
gifts of the new time. But our stubborn 
St. Friend, as a member of the school board, 
generally votes against them, and in solitary 
grandeur. "While at one with the general poli- 
cies of the educational system, he makes many 
a speech before the members for the restora- 
tion of the regime of the book and the black- 
board. He truly says that these are now al- 



182 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

most abolished in the presence of the protean 
triumphant films, of the street pageantry, the 
training of skilled labor in the high schools, 
of the oral, the phonographic, telegraphic and 
telephone methods, applied to all forms of 
teaching. And only last week he met what 
appeared to be his Waterloo when it was 
voted to extend and enlarge the entirely re- 
spectable, if a little frigid, university dance 
halls and to include motion picture loafing 
rooms, the better to run competition with the 
Yellow Halls. 

Some of these things I go over with Avanel, 
as we walk home from witnessing Surto Hur- 
denburg's oath, and we wonder just what of 
the forbidden things, besides motion pictures, 
St. Friend will include in his pledge for the 
Liberal Observance. Avanel says: **I admit 
that the men who are sworn in, like this Surto 
Hurdenburg, are apt to become useful, if fa- 
natical, citizens. Their poor strength must be 
economized in narrow channels if it is to 
last and be recuperated. But if St. Friend 
tries to put such a set of chains on me I will 
not speak to him for a month. ' ' 

Saturday, June 7: — St. Friend has today 
given it out by word of mouth and by edi- 
torials in the five papers that the whole world 
is welcome to his bread. The Order of the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 183 

Liberal Observance is already more popularly- 
called by the alternate descriptive title : * ' The 
Citizens in the Communion of the Blessed 
Bread. ' ' There is no oath ; even a Quaker may 
join. 

Sunday, June 8: — It is the warmest morn- 
ing of the year, so far, in an exceedingly back- 
ward summer. It is the first real June 
weather, and all the people rejoice in it. 
Avanel walks to church in the most wonderful 
of white airy dresses. And in these vacuum- 
cleaned streets, with no soot and no coal dust 
and no factory grime, people, working or 
playing, can be dressed all day as for a party 
if they choose. 

All day yesterday couriers of all faiths, 
representing St. Friend 's personal rather than 
his religious companions, have been out invi- 
ting the people. At least one member of each 
family has been asked to bring his tribe to 
the Cathedral green and to listen and carry 
the message back with the bread. 

Avanel and I are early for Church and so 
we make a circuit, enjoying the airy splen- 
dors of the crowd. And we go around by St. 
John's Hospital, so lately rebuilt by the in- 
sistence of Mayo Sims, to vindicate his scien- 
tific zeal, and they say it is a splendid scien- 
tific monument to any man. It is east of the 



184 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, as it has 
been for over four generations. And the her- 
etic synagogue and the school for teaching 
Hebrew, conducted by Rabbi Terence Ezekiel, 
are on the sites where the two orthodox syna- 
gogues were, one hundred years ago. 

The green in front of the Cathedral was 
enclosed by a beautiful Gothic wall long ago, 
at the same time the devout congregation 
rebuilt the church. The enclosure is rapidly 
filling with people. St. Friend is to speak to 
the whole city from the Cathedral steps. 

Piled on great wooden trays on the side of 
the Cathedral steps are the splendid brown 
loaves, put there for all the world by the 
Brotherhood of the Strict Observance, who 
are about in their almost monkish official 
robes, proud indeed to be so prominent. 

Blue-faced Surto Hurdenburg, so lately 
sworn in, is an ex-headwaiter of alleged New 
York hotel training and he is now to prove 
his mettle. He is about his task decorously 
and swiftly enough, for those seated and set- 
tled already have the tissue-wrapped loaves 
in their laps, and all through the sermon, as 
fast as our citizens are settled, they are given 
their loaves without a sound or a grimace, and 
Hurdenburg, the efficient, rises high at once in 
the estimation of the children of light. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 185 

But now the saint rises to speak. He is 
indeed a figure; his white hair gleams in the 
June morning air. His face is the face of Lin- 
coln, grown old, with a touch of St. Francis 
eternally young.. He straightens to his full 
height. He is fifty years younger. He is one 
of those capable of seeming collapse for 
weeks, when it is but the storage time, and 
then the lightning is discharged in one tre- 
mendous hour. 

There is a certain vast medieval humor 
about him. He is vested in his ceremonial bak- 
ing apron and Avanel giggles till he actually 
begins to speak. This is the end of his 
sermon : — 

''Pray consider that, in your freedom from 
vows this splendid June day, you are never- 
theless dubbed knights, my fellow citizens. In 
medieval times monks and knights served the 
Church with the same divine vocation and 
devotion. 

"The Church of Springfield has come. It 
is the sunlit grass of this park; it is this Illi- 
nois sky. Under the roof of this Cathedral 
behind me and of all the churches, temples, 
and synagogues of this town, its primer work 
has been done and will be done. It will begin 
with sheltered faiths and will not contradict 
or undermine any. 



186 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

*'It seems that we imist periodically sing 
hymns and look at the little jeweled holy 
things and read the precious little books, or 
we cannot go on and out and up. There was 
only one Johnny Appleseed in the history of 
mankind. His image is in our Cathedral, but 
even he read Swedenborg and clung to that 
system. Yet sooner or later, like that great 
saint Johnny Appleseed, we awaken to our 
great outdoors, and all the visions there. 

''All Holy worship, learned, as when John- 
ny Appleseed walked the highroad, or the 
primer lesson when he first read Swedenborg 
beneath his boyhood roof, makes over the 
mere bread of comradeship into this blessed 
bread which will heal our shameful diseases 
of body and of soul. 

''Share it, share it! When we have shared 
the blessed bread, communing like true 
friends, the beauty of all Heaven, the sea in 
which we move that is above all and through 
all and in all, will gild more perfectly the 
Springfield daily grind and the Springfield 
sabbath. The devout convert and his child 
and his grandchild will build his house as 
beautifully as our Sacred Apple Tree is made, 
as righteously as the Sacred Oak Tree, as 
democratically as the Golden Rain Tree, 
which spreads its branches like a gate for 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 187 

all of us to pass through in equality. The de- 
vout convert will build such architecture as 
glitters in the songs and books of devotion of 
St. Scribe. 

' ' The voices of the children will be as noble 
as the discourses of the prairie winds that 
catch our tree boughs at sunset. Every house 
will be as delicate and subtle as the ferny 
hollows of the Sangamon. The convert will 
name many birds that will come at his call 
and he will feed them crumbs of this Blessed 
Bread in friendship. 

**When Springfield has partaken of this 
manna for a generation, all things will be- 
come new. Leavening thoughts will come 
from all the street corners. Novel fancies will 
come from the coffee houses. The conferences 
and colloquies of fallible men will take on 
something, of the aspect of the meetings of 
the inspired souls of Heaven. 

**We walk our plain path! We eat our plain 
bread in a rare fellowship! Therefore all 
things become eternal. The Church of Spring- 
field, the church of this sunlit grass, the 
church of a million days and nights, is pro- 
claimed from the steps of this Cathedral of 
St. Peter and St. Paul this day." 

And now Avanel comments : — ' ' If you look 
deeply into the aphorisms my father serves 



188 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

with his apples and with his paper money 
theory, you will find', though he is no atheist 
or mocker, he is a son of the narrow, dry an- 
tagonisms of some of the village atheist stock 
with which our blood mingled during our so- 
journ in Egypt. I glory in my Indian ancestry, 
even if I do not make myself conspicuous 
with my hair loose and my left hand crimson. 
But as to my father's village-infidel streak, 
I have no use for it. Moreover, I heard him 
ding dong his doctrines in my childhood at 
times when he was not at his best. I know 
better how to take St. Friend. Both are nar- 
row as mousetraps on their literal side, if one 
has a turn for being caught. 

"I think I choose St. Friend for my guide, 
because he begins and ends with prayer. I do 
not stay away from motion pictures, as he 
commands, nor from the Yellow Dance Halls, 
as he and my fa^Her both command. But I 
distrust these places, because of the warnings 
of these good men. I will eat this bread, you 
and I will eat it together, though I know it is 
railed at in the Yellow Dance Halls, and I 
know the keen things that are said there 
against such superstitions. We will continue 
to eat together the Amaranth-Apples that are 
tabooed there. We will read together the prov- 
erbs and songs and prayers of St. Scribe and, 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 1&9 

while our feet may be in the Yellow Halls, 
our souls will be making the pilgrimage of 
the one hundred religions. We will be think- 
ing together how the whole human race is the 
body of Christ, soon to be raised from the 
dead." 

And so this evening Avanel invites me to 
her own select table in the inn at the top of 
one of the great northwest gates, the inner 
gate, that overlooks the former village of 
Ashland, Cass County, and is one of the 
chief glories of the Inner Wall. It is 
the Musicians' Building and from here 
oftener than anywhere else on this wall, 
sound the special evening hymns and organ 
solos and chimes, over this whole segment of 
the city and over the forest parks to the north, 
between the walls. Pilgrims pass through the 
gate beneath us. They have visited, accord- 
ing to the ritual, Lincoln's monument, the 
First Shrine of St. Scribe — Hunter-Kelly, and 
they are hurrying along his great highway 
leading northwest through the Gate of the 
Outer Wall, that overlooks the former village 
of Virginia in old Cass County. 

Our refractory is called: — The Pilgrim's 
First Inn. It is on the cafeteria principle but 
is a most spacious place, being the whole floor 
of the tower, with tremendous sheets of glass 



190 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

for windows, so that an aviator, circling it, 
can see straight through it from every angle, 
and all the colored and decorative search- 
lights of this happy June evening sweep 
through it as the twilight comes on, lights for 
the most part of the delicate tints of the 
'towers: — more like rapid clouds, left over 
from the sunset, than sharp, searching, 
swords. 

So Avanel and I find our table, in proper 
chatting distance from several others, some 
of whom have also brought their brown 
loaf. And we carry from the counter a few 
things like coffee and butter and Amaranth- 
Apples and we banquet. She speaks more 
lovingly of her father's many moods. She 
divides the apples, uttering at the same time 
scraps of his philosophy. 

At last we take the bread of St. Friend. It 
is our communion service. High Mass of com- 
radeship. 

Avanel quotes from the Gospel of Luke, — 
from Luke's deathless story of the first com- 
munion. 

There is a ringing of bells all over the city, 
silvery and sweet, and in every tower of the 
walls: — the ringing of the star chimes. It is 
a clear night. The sweeping colored lights 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 191 

are gone. We go to the great expanse of win- 
dows and look up. 

Avanel says: — "The trouble with this 
breaking of bread is that it is a pledge to 
break our bodies. I do not want to break 
mine for a long time, if ever." 

"Yet," I say, "You ride your pale war 
horse." Avanel, the dancer, replies: — "Let 
us hope that the war will never come. Let us 
hope, before the time war is due, the body of 
Christ, the whole human race, will be raised 
from the dead." 



CHAPTER XII 

HOW THROUGH SERMONS BY ST. FRIEND AND BT 
POLITICAL ACTIVITY, SUCH AS THAT OF SURTO 
HURDBNBURG, THE YELLOW DANCE HALLS 
ARE VOTED OUT FOR GOOD. 

June 9, 2018: — I have given up art teach- 
ing in a separate studio of my own and have 
been, for some time, merely writing verses 
and loafing about and peering into the town, 
often with old Sparrow Short. This comes 
about because I have sent my few pupils over 
to him. He is a most likable fellow. He puts 
on no airs whatever. We find we have a great 
ocean of common opinions and identical prej- 
udices in the field of art and an equal love 
of feeding crumbs to the English sparrows 
and other such birds and we keep off ground 
where we would be hostile in argument. I 
think I did the town a good turn when I per- 
suaded such people as showed symptoms of 
studying with me, to study with him. In re- 
turn he urges me to give criticisms in his life 
classes when I feel the urge to raipart to 
youth, or when he is out loafing, or helping 

192 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 193 

decorate some of the newly revamped yellow 
halls, particularly the Hall of Velaska, The 
latest occasion when I took over his place 
came about because he was locked up for days 
without anyone to go his bail all for al- 
leged treason to the World Government. At 
last Boone lets him out, by going bond, with 
a roaring lecture, which is replied to in kind, 
they say, with no show of gratitude whatever. 
But the privilege of being out on bond is pre- 
carious and liable to be withdrawn to one 
waiting trial for World Treason and Short 
keeps me in sight for emergencies. Sparrow 
Short is, of course, passionately loyal to the 
Star Spangled Banner and Washington's 
Farewell Address but that is considered only 
one half of patriotism and called ''World- 
Anarchy ' ' now. Most of the people who study 
under him do not care what his views may be 
on any subject but art. He is the best teacher 
and that is enough for them. And, as a mat- 
ter of fact, in expressing his international 
views which he does out of teaching hours, 
he is a roaring baby and unworthy the at- 
tention of grown up politicians. But I tell 
him that even grown ups in politics should 
not be too much censured for misunderstand- 
ing him. People, like Short, who fight for 



194 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

individuality and whose whole object as 
teachers is to promote the diversity of their 
pupils, cannot see why the world cannot be 
one great art class. They are, indeed, in 
strong contrast with state builders, who build 
with men in masses and blocks. 

This morning Short takes me around to the 
Hall of Velaska, when it is absolutely deserted 
except by ourselves, and shows me with pride 
the pictures he has given the hall. These pic- 
tures are so set in the walls, they seem painted 
there, and the whole color scheme that Short 
has long planned holds them together. There 
is a defiant touch of Singaporian green in it, 
sometimes with the glisten of the hated green 
glass, but the place is otherwise in the most 
quiet and inoffensive taste. 

The first picture is the one that he had long 
planned for the "World's Fair, till it was de- 
barred on account of its subject: — the por- 
trait of Mara of Singapore, when she was the 
age of Juliet. Next is what Short calls a Fairy 
Fashionplate, a gown to be worn at the fu- 
neral of an exceedingly wealthy bumblebee. 
If we are to believe our guide, Mr. Short, here 
is depicted an occasion when one must wear a 
look of grief and resignation and an appro- 
priate costume. Short explains that all boot- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 195 

licking fairies consider* it good form to black- 
en the face on such occasions. They will not 
blacken their faces for bumblebees who are 
poor. But, when a deal of honey is left to sus- 
tain the mourners, it has become a convenient 
manner of expressing grief for the honey- 
eater to steal an ink bottle off a writing table 
and spill the ink all over one 's self. One looks 
more crestfallen than in any conventional 
black. So this fairy manikin is dressed in 
gray dove's feathers and ink poured on her 
in streaks and her little face is all smudged 
with it. Soon she will hurry home, take a com- 
plete bath, and eat the honey. 

The Boy and the Ostrichissimus: — The Os- 
trichissimus is a bird about three times the 
size of the ostrich and with ostrich plumes 
all over it, and some of them so long behind, 
it has not the insulting shape of the ostrich. 
A more graceful neck helps also. Its head is 
not so bald. The Ostrichissimus is driven with 
a silk cord, passed through the mouth, for a 
bridle. The boy driving holds on tight with 
both knees and is a little scared but enjoying 
himself immensely. They are hurrying across 
the Sahara desert. 

The Devil is Making Candy: — Short ex- 
plains that this is a picture with a purpose. 



196 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

The Devil, in a cook's costume, is bending 
over the usual candy kettle. Peeping in at 
the door are those that wait for his candy. 
These are the usual run of sinners, types that 
appear in sermon pictures, the miser with his 
gold and the Magdalene with her painted 
jaws, etc. The devil looks exceedingly sly but 
Short explains that there is nothing for him 
to look sly about. It is only fudge. The Devil 
tests it by dipping in his finger, which, of 
course, he can do without burning himself, 
*'Yet," says Short, ''I would not eat after 
the Devil's fingers. Would you?" 

The Sewing Machine of Fate: — Fate is an 
old woman among the stars, big as a sign of 
the zodiac. She is crouched in a heap over a 
sewing machine. It is a little too small for 
her clumsy hands but she can use it. Forever 
and forever, with eyes that never lift from 
the plunging needle, she bends over her task, 
sending through new cloth from the looms of 
time. When this cloth has passed under the 
needle, it is written with characters that can 
never be snipped out. This inscription is all 
she lives for. Yet, like the inscriptions of the 
temples of Yucatan, it is forever unreadable 
except to ghosts, hobgoblins, spooks, and 
such like creatures, with whom sensible 
people have nothing to do. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 197 

There is one great blank space on the wall, 
for the portrait of the mythical queen of the 
revels in this particular Yellow Hall, Sally 
Mary Ann Velaska Harris, familiarly called 
'^Velaska." 

Sunday, June 15 : — I find myself this morn- 
ing in the loft of the gigantic Cathedral of 
St. Peter and St. Paul with Surto Hurden- 
burg. His face is still painted blue by mother 
nature, as a reminder of his long struggles 
with alcohol. But there are new unquench- 
able fires within. He looks like a broken down 
but repentant Bill Sykes. He takes the ser- 
mon with great literalness, as I know, by his 
asides to me. 

St. Friend's voice is much more quavering 
and old than last Sunday. He is living in the 
reaction from that tremendous physical out- 
lay. It is as though we were endowed with a 
special sense of hearing and were listening 
from celestial parapets to the cry of a sick 
man on the earth. 

Such is the magnificence and medievalism 
of the old church, so brilliant are its windows, 
so austere its pillars and niches for the saints, 
and the images of those saints, that it seems 
to have been built a thousand instead of a 
hundred years ago. Yet here are not only 
images of St. Peter and St. Paul, but of a 



198 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

long line of saints, as beautiful as America 
itself all the way to yesterday. Here are 
Saint Francis and Swedenborg, and Johnny 
Appleseed before whom candles are burn- 
ing: — Hunter Kelly, in his aspect of St. Scribe 
of the Shrines, and Ralph Waldo Emerson 
and Mary Baker Eddy, and the first Mother 
Grey, founder of the flower religion and 
Jane Addams and that tremendous and di- 
vine jester and poet and sage, Abraham Lin- 
coln. There are a hundred other niches with 
the American saints and world saints and a 
hundred others waiting for the saints of to- 
morrow. 

But Surto Hurdenburg is listening to the 
sermon. Here is a fragment thereof: — 

''The solution of the problem of the social 
evil can be given in four words: 'THE 
PROUD CITIZEN WOMAN.' 

' ' Springfield has no tenements but until the 
life of the United States outside of Spring- 
field has its larger hours of leisure and 
more green clear spaces in which to cultivate 
codes and fine observances between boy and 
girl, the custom of selling the young girls to 
the slaughter will leap over double Gothic 
walls and invade those groves and parks we 
call 'Springfield.' We have the beginning 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 199 

of chivalry in many ways, such as the public 
school honor pageants and athletic honor 
tournaments and all the fine codes of Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the First, in connection 
therewith. We still need more sense of honor, 
honor beyond the point of Bayard and the 
Cid. 

' ' There is only one issue for sweethearts : — 
honor or dishonor, citizen or slave. So it has 
been from the beginning of time, so it will 
continue till woman's redemption and com- 
plete emancipation. The fantastic Hindu 
would die ten thousand deaths before he 
would break caste. 

''The stubborn Mohammedan or Jew will 
yet be torn to shreds before he will consent to 
offer to an idol. Not all the tides of the world 
cynicism has changed these. The Japanese 
would cut out his tongue before he would 
speak a slighting word against the flag or 
honor of Japan or do a work in her despite. 
Are these people to be mocked for having a 
code? 

"By standing by those Don Quixotic notions 
they prove they are men, not cattle. America, 
led by such orchard cities as Springfield and 
the other capitals that are turning their streets 
into parks of worship, should have one pa- 



200 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGI^ELD 

triotism, one caste rule, one religion, the relig- 
ion of honoring woman as a comrade citizen. 

*'The Yellow Dance Halls are deceits. They 
dance lies. Their unwritten laws are poison- 
ous Singaporian devices that in the end make 
beasts of boys and girls and take cocaine 
for granted. And in the sporting, boastful 
excitement of cocaine, ill things are born, 
vendettas that only yesterday brought mortal 
bloodshed upon our streets and tricks that 
shamed us before the ages. 

"The election is coming Tuesday, the Yel- 
low Dance Hall Parade, tomorrow. Let us 
remember that this referendum election has 
been brought about by the signatures of the 
entire Board of Education, of over half the 
City Council and of a completely representa- 
tive host of citizens of all families and clans 
and faiths. If we who have signed that paper 
win our petition, it is the last and third call 
and the voters will grant that The Yellow 
Dance Halls be banished from our city for- 
ever. Tomorrow the Yellow Parade is com- 
ing. There will be every effort on the part 
of the yellow claque to laugh down the seri- 
ousness of the issue. Let no friend of this 
Cathedral take part in that parade. Let all 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 201 

good citizens, at every spare moment from 
this hour to the election, go forth to urge 
their immediate kith and kin and fellow clans- 
men to turn out at the polls and vote for the 
banishment of these places and let my friends 
who have taken the especial Oath of the Strict 
Observance consider this election their charge 
and let them leave nothing undone that will 
secure a full showing at the polls of the voters 
of whatever persuasion. The only way to lose 
this election is by staying at home." 

The voice of the aged and weary St. Friend 
rises almost to a shriek. He pauses many 
times for breath but goes on, clinging to the 
pulpit as he may, exhausted by vigil and 
anger: — 

**The Yellow Halls, where all public gam- 
bling is carried on and all election money 
passes! The Yellow Halls, where, despite the 
legislation of a clearly established majority, 
through a hundred years, the gold and alcohol 
from far beneath the gilded roofs, is brought 
forth from mouldy hiding places and doled 
out to corrupt the electorate and thwart the 
clearly recorded will of the people. How long 
shall we endure these secret multimillionaires 
and secret wine kings and secret cocaine 
kings, despising every phase of thoroughbred 



202 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

and honor-bound American Democracy? De- 
spite all the doings of the month of May, not 
one hiding place of their gold has been un- 
earthed, not one case of their wine has been 
dug up and confiscated by the Federal Gov- 
ernment. 

"Yet their children know these secret treas- 
uries and meet in these halls to corrupt all 
the other children of the city. From way be- 
low gilded roofs the poison venders ascend 
by tortuous and shameful passages and go 
forth to dance and destroy and defeat the 
plain will of the people as recorded in initia- 
tive, referendum, and recall, and elections at 
the polls and guild elections: — and even, at 
the height of their folly, to whisper Singa- 
porian treason." 

And so St. Friend has done and Surto Hur- 
denburg beside me takes him with exceeding 
literalness and goes forth to agitate and or- 
ganize even more zealously till this battle 
is over. 

Monday, June 16: — Such is the protean 
character of human nature that at least one 
third of that congregation of* yesterday, hav- 
ing their costumes already prepared, think 
it is a pity not to use them., and are in the pa- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 203 

rade this afternoon, which comes immediately 
after business hours, at four o'clock. 

The parade is led by Velaska, and her 
minions are scattering giant asters from her 
yellow barge. She is an unknown and wears a 
yellow mask. All this is a tradition of these 
parades. The pantomime acts and dances, the 
width and length of the block, made up of a 
thousand clowns and jesters with baubles, go 
by; and Falstaffs without number. Because 
of the vacuum-cleaned streets and streets not 
so hard as of old underfoot, endless dancing 
and delicate and crisp and diaphanous effects 
can be secured and kept effective. But it is 
all yellow, not orange: — from Bacchus and 
Ariadne to the April gods and goddesses of 
all of Asia. Three great ballets, the New 
York, the New Orleans and the St. Louis, are 
imported to dance their way down the streets. 
The parade follows the exact route of the 
other and pours north on Sixth defiantly past 
the Cathedral, where I am watching it as it 
ends. The crowd has begun to clear away. 
There is a rabble of automobiles. Then there 
is a queer hush. The auto horns stop blowing. 

There comes the palanquin of the Man of 
Singapore, followed by that of his daughter, 
Mara : — such familiar sights to a certain num- 



204 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

"ber of Springfield citizens, that the element 
they add to the day's pageantry is nominal, 
but to those sensitive on the issue it is every- 
thing politically. The Boone Ax reporters 
scan once more, for the thousandth time, the 
unreadable faces of the two, searching out 
the Mystery of Asia. The man bows to his 
friends and the girl does the same and, accord- 
ing to those who have seen them many times 
before, their aspect is not one hair's breadth 
changed from former occasions. The blazing 
green, in the name of the Green Glass Buddha 
of Singapore is, if anything, a rest to the eyes 
after the uncanny yellow in the name of other 
less mysterious gods. 

I am most of all impressed with the fact, 
seeing him for the first time, that the Man 
from Singapore is, after all, in his Asiatic 
way, a superb gentleman. His daughter seems 
to me the most high bred of gazelle-like la- 
dies, which, indeed, I had known from her 
child portrait by Sparrow Short and by 
Short's careful report of her ways. 

So it is hard for the honest puritans of The 
Boone Ax, even those who were not bom yes- 
terday, to find legitimate place for a new de- 
nouncing of the Professor of Malay Arts and 
Letters and his daughter. And so the late 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 205 

evening edition of The Boone Ax calls them 
*'the two strangers." That is all. 

I have a jolly evening with Old Sparrow 
Short in the Tom Strong Lunch Room. There 
with many others, friends of the halls, Short 
is quite frank over the issue of tomorrow and 
prattles away at the pessimists. He feels, for 
a certainty, all needed is that everyone there 
glow and enthuse. Coffee Kusuko owns most 
of the Yellow Halls, of course. That means 
he uses them any way Slick Slack Kopensky 
and Mayo Sims direct, at a crisis, and tonight 
the talk at the neighboring tables is all for 
the Yellow people and as loud as possible to 
be skillful. This is true in the Drug Stores of 
Smith as well, no doubt, for they are in the 
same combination. 

Then later in the evening we go together 
to take Avanel to the Hall of Velaska, some- 
what to the astonishment of Short, who knows 
she hates him. But she wants to give him a 
chance at her approval, through his pictures. 
"When the revellers sight my lady, the leers 
fade, and the boa constrictor dances of Singa- 
pore subside. And the gray head of Short 
puts them somewhat on their dignity, even if 
they merely regard Avanel with spite. But go 



206 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

many of them are sage and solemn with her 
and bow so carefully! 

''They are trying too hard," says Avanel. 

Sparrow Short shows us the mottoes he has 
painted high on the walls: 

''Good Cheer Can Save the Soul." 

''Let us Cultivate the Patience of Humor." 

"Let us Seek the Humility of Humor and 
Laugh at Ourselves. ' ' 

"The Touch of Humor is in all Successful 
Politics." 

"No Man is Too Awkward to Dance." 
(But he has never danced in his life!) 

Then he shows us the picture of Velaska, 
the mythical muse of the Hall. Velaska 
is expecting her lover. She is dressed in the 
heaviest and most pretentious of yellow silks ; 
were it not for her veil, there would be no 
harmony. But it is iridescent, covers her 
from head to foot, blending and modifying all. 

She wears her yellow mask. Short says: — 
"Her lover will not see her face till the dawn, 
when she lays aside her veil also. ' ' 

He is quite proud of his picture. Avanel 
is politely interested and no more. The pic- 
ture, gives me the headache, 1 am sure it is 
the poorest thing Short has done. He thinks 
it is the jflag of liberty, almost equal to the 



THE GOLt)EN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELIi 207' 

Star Spangled Banner, and the Declaration 
of Independence, and Washington's Farewell 
Address. Avanel dances with many loving 
and devoted boys. Avanel admires enthusi- 
astically all the other pictures of Short and 
his decorations. But it is plain, when the 
evening is over, they still hate each other. 

Tuesday, June 17: — Today ^'Velaska" and 
her train are voted out ''for good and all." 
Blue-faced Surto Hurdenburg and a thousand 
like him have gone from house to house, talk- 
ing incessantly. Morality is always keener in 
the followers than the leaders, and Hurden- 
burg and his kind worked among the sharp 
strong-minded semi-obscure people, just a 
little better than themselves, whose edge is 
not dulled by many successes or the paradoxes 
and mixed alliances that come about through 
the long possession of power. 

Some Yellow Dance Hall people charge that 
Drug Store Smith, Coffee Kusuko, and Slick 
Slack Kopensky pocketed the campaign fund 
of the dug-up gold, to bury it in their own 
pits. 

The ''dead game sports" of the city roar 
themselves purple about a "tyrannical minor- 
ity" and "horrible puritanism" despite the 



208 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

heaviest majority against them that the 
laughing city ever polled on any issue. They 
try to spread the wild rumor that ** tobacco 
and coffee will go next and then the theatre." 



CHAPTEE Xin 

HOW BLUE-FACED SURTO HURDENBURG IS LYNCHED. 

HOW THE TOWN SWEEPS ON INTO THE GLORIES 

OF SUMMER AND JUNE BRIDES AND THE GORG- 

EOUSNESS OF THE TOWERS FROM NIGHTFALL 

TILL MIDNIGHT. HOW MY LOVE AND I 

ARE AGAIN ENSNARED BY DEVIL'S 

GOLD. 

June 20, 2018: — Last night was presumably 
the time of the final closing of the halls, at 
precisely five minutes of twelve. So at five 
minutes of eight or thereabouts, one of the 
younger members of the Montague Rock fam- 
ily brings, with great secrecy and under spe- 
cial devices of disguise, a treasury of wine 
from beneath some cellar of his clan and dis- 
tributes it to a carefully censored company in 
the Yellow Hall of the Mythical Velaska. The 
world begins to burn for those here assembled 
for their farewell dance. It so happens that 
Hurdenburg, intoxicated from the mere drink 
of victory, hears the noise as he passes. He 
mounts the stairs. He breaks past a guard 
who has himself had enough drink to make 

209 



210 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

him too easy. But the remainder of the com- 
pany have had enough to make them too 
stern and at the very sight of the "puritan" 
Hurdenburg, they turn to beasts. They have 
been saying, moreover, that they were going 
to hang the whole Board of Education and 
"every other damned hypocrite in town." 
They have been denouncing, with some 
shrieks, "the millions of rank hypocrites" 
with which America is beset, hypocrites who 
banish the gold and the alcohol to the cellars 
and will not permit people to be "honest mil- 
lionaires" and "honest drunkards" when 
they please. "What the town really needs," 
they have been saying, — and Crawling Jim, 
slayer of Beau Nash, has been saying it the 
loudest, — is a vigilance committee. What the 
''holy city of Springfield needs is a committee 
to hang with ropes all people who attempt 
to regulate the religion or the habits of their 
neighbors. ' ' By religion, Jim probably means 
the Singaporian religion but does not stress 
that point. 

And so, at sight of Hurdenburg, the in- 
famous minion of the wicked St. Friend, Hur- 
denburg drunk on political and ecclesiastical 
power, they make a rush for him, and, led by 
crawling Jim, this crew, in the masks of the 
Myithical Vela^ka, tie Surto Hurdenburg to a 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 211 

pillar. They drink more buried treasure, as 
they decide what to do with him. They form- 
ally and solemnly conclude that they will be 
merciful and not follow the well established 
American lynching custom of burning alive, 
though Hurdenburg, in this case, deserves 
such treatment. They untie him from the pil- 
lar, and carry him to the foot of a Golden 
Rain Tree of Democracy. Crawling Jim puts 
the noose in place. Then Hurdenburg is 
hanged by the neck till he is dead. And 
the merrymakers go back to the hall undis- 
turbed and dance till five minutes before 
twelve and then the city police close the hall, 
according to expectations. The followers of 
the masked Velaska go home, apparently 
satisfied with one night 's work, most of them 
in the arms of one another and quite drunk 
with wine. It is toward morning a police- 
man finds Hurdenburg, cut down by an un- 
known hand, lying in the grass. 

June 24: — All local papers, including The 
Boone Ax, roar about the lynching for one 
day, then proceed to minimize it as much as 
possible. So I will do the same in this chron- 
icle, being loyal to my city. A Chicago paper 
of infamous repute is glad to ''have some- 
thing on" Springfield and sends down gloat- 
ing reporters, who.naake the very worst of it. 



212 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

rehash Springfield's political history for the 
last month, putting the ugliest face on every- 
thing, tracing through the city their own kind 
of history. 

June 25 : — Rumors of the threatened lynch- 
ing of all the accepted leaders of the town 
are circulating from the City Hall, though the 
City Hall people are with the greatest im- 
partiality included in the rumors. The Board 
of Education is not frightened. The city to- 
day proceeds to give Hurdenburg a wonderful 
funeral. This funeral seems to ring the doom 
of infamous Yellow Halls for all time. Saint 
Friend preaches a funeral sermon with tre- 
mendous fire. 

June 26 : — It appears that the bad bloods of 
the town are frantically devouring their own 
souls, or leaving. The city has been losing, 
since the election and the lynching, as much 
genius as it does deviltry. Sparrow Short 
who has been obliged to take down his pic- 
tures and hang them defiantly in his own 
studio, has turned into a profane old varlet, 
amazing to hear, and is inciting as many 
pupils of ours as possible to leave Springfield. 
He is himself threatening to leave. But he 
does not leave. '* Certainly it is no hard- 
ship," as the Sentimental Romanoff says, in 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 213 

The Boone Ax, "to see departing the most of 
those with a special talent for raising Cain. ' ' 
And he remarks on what an awful row they 
would have made, had they been sent out of 
town. The coffee houses still exist. There is 
no denying that they are getting pretty lively, 
considering that nothing but coffee is dis- 
pensed. 

Rabbi Ezekiel, moreover, with all care to 
defer to the aged St. Friend in a personal 
way, declares that the photoplay movement, 
being no longer in alliance with questioned 
places, is destined to go forward with fresh 
life. He admits that the abolition of the halls 
is justified, though he took no part in it. But 
he is a motion picture fan, whatever the turn 
of history. 

June 27 : — My whole feeling over the fights 
about the halls is that I have not had much 
chance, after Avanel's promise to dance there 
with me. I have had only an evening or so. 

As for the lynching, the court proceedings 
promise to drag on, as they always have in 
such cases. Everyone knows nothing will be 
done except postpone. Everyone knows it was 
Jim, yet no one knows it, and the Janitor of 
the Yellow Hall is the only person whose 
name gets into the papers. 



214 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Juno 28: — Tlirf^ Thibetan Boy, that the 
Romanoff dubbed the Muttering Thibetan, 
now swings into my life, and as though he 
were a guide sent from wonderland, with 
sealed orders just opened, he takes me the 
rounds of Springfield and the whole city be- 
comes new. It is not a place of individual sin- 
ners and saints. The City's architecture 
seems to breathe and live for him. The tiniest 
gargoyle takes on personality and citizenship. 
All this morning he has been taking me 
through the gardens of Mother Grey. These 
gardens seem built rather than planted. The 
trees are green walls and roofs. I am amused 
to note there is no prejudice against dande- 
lions, since, in a former existence, I had so 
many to dig up. They now make the carpets. 
He takes me into the temple studio of Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Third, who is especi- 
ally busy for young university student girls 
who expect to be June brides in the next two 
or three days. This studio is a place estab- 
lished for the innermost circles of the flower 
religion. Before each altar is a design to be 
set up and kept glorious in some new cottage. 
Several of these are for a new row of cottages 
near Washington Park called Bridal Row. 
The temple is full of the fluttering brides of 
tomorrow, seeing the last touches and consult- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 215 

ing about what candles and incense to burn, 
and asking over and over what flowers are 
permitted by the Flower Religion Marriage 
Service, which is the one most preferred by 
the exquisites of 2018. 

June 29: — Avanel and I have developed a 
favorite walk: the Lincoln's monument re- 
gion. We pass under many of the Golden 
Rain Trees and Ezekiel Oaks, to the Apple- 
Amaranth Grove that was the first in Sanga- 
mon County, and the Grave of Hunter Kelly, 
in the midst of it. There are the old pick and 
spade of the Devil, always left on the grave. 
When we do not walk in this region we are 
apt to be looking this way from the Truth 
Tower, from the lookout room of the news- 
papers, or looking back from the telescope 
room of the Ashland Gate. Avanel is gener- 
ally very solemn looking this way, planning 
new processions and dances in praise of Hun- 
ter Kelly and the next festival of Hunter 
Kelly, July 11. 

June 30: — Avanel has four suitors in 
Springfield. I am often but a ghost in my own 
eyes and always but shadow to them. On the 
hot summer days she goes with three of them 
to the gigantic porcelain-lined swimming pool 
of Bunn Park, with two girls, a merry six. 



216 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

I hardly have my turn with her for several 
days at a time. 

One of her suitors is an engineer. One is 
a motor-truck driver. One is an aviator. I 
sometimes find myself the servant of all three 
men, but ignored as servants may be. As 
clouds, mists and smoke seems to choke me, 
through the whirlwind, I am sometimes 
the absurd unregarded dragon engine bear- 
ing her and the engineer to Chicago. While 
she laughs as his guest in the engine cab I 
must look down the track through the murk, 
and I cannot turn round and see the face of 
her lover, and the skies are laughing at me 
forever. Sometimes I am in my dream 
the absurd auto-truck engine, carrying her 
and the driver, as he delivers his last con- 
signment of goods from the central market. 
Even the stones of the street laugh at me as 
we rattle over them. I am only a mechanical 
toy, and the trafiSc in the street, preparing 
for the great World's Fair, drowns out the 
whispers of the young people. 

Sometimes I am the ridiculous flying ma- 
chine in which she rides as though to mock 
me, with the third lover. I must soar on and 
carry them and they go through fearful 
storms and up through inconceivable black- 
ness and I cannot see before or after. Even 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 217 

the sound of tlie rushing wind drowns out 
their words. 

And as these men dismount from their char- 
iots, and as they are on the point of passing 
by me, with their lordly airs, I turn to dust. 
I am as dust of the road swept up by a little 
puff of wind. And then the witchcraft con- 
tinues and I find myself a coal digger in the 
mine beside young Joseph Bartholdi Michael, 
the Third, or laying brick with him some- 
where, and I know that I am such stuff as 
dreams are made off. 

My fourth rival is the one I most fear. 
He is a twenty year old libertine, a kind of a 
Lord Byron. He loves her now, for a day. His 
name is TIME. To torture me the more and 
lure me on from the desire for perpetual death 
and to prepare me again for a more futile 
struggle, he gives me deep and curious days 
with Avanel, when we seem to be twin explor- 
ers of the Universe. And then I have big 
athletic days with her when I seem, not a 
ghost, but something as substantial as a 
strutting turkey gobbler. 

So this last day of June, in the Mystic Year, 
after a big swim at Bunn Park, amidst 
thousands of gay mermen and mermaids, we 
plan an all-afternoon and all-evening walk. 
And we go west on Wellesley Avenue and 



218 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

north on Sixth Street, all the way to the 
Sangamon River and to Sangamon River 
Park, We find there a cage we have never 
seen before. It is between the ice pit of the 
grizzly bears and the yard of the giraffes. 
It is a large cage. In it a pair of new animals 
pace back and forth, trailing their quills on 
the ground. The cage is marked. "Quilled 
Lions from Java. ' ' They do not seem as fierce 
as lions, but have a more human peering, 
way. They seem to be deeply interested in the 
world rather than angry with it. The male 
animal marches round and round his mate. 
She is like him even to the collar of gorgeous 
quills that rise and fall. The heads of these 
sagacious beasts differentiate them further 
from lions. They have a bit more skull struc- 
ture, and at the same time are more satanic 
in their foreheads and their faces. They seem 
to speak to each other by signs, by glances, 
and mere pacing together. It gives the im- 
pression of being most detailed and construc- 
tive conversation. Meanwhile, the crests go 
through chameleon changes. The beasts watch 
the setting sun as intently as we have ever 
done, and the spikequill collars follow every 
evanescent turn of the hues. 

Avanel says : ' ' Whatever these animals are, 
they ought not to be in a cage. If they could 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 219 

only be taught the English language, or we 
could learn theirs, we might make them mas- 
cots for the city, or even Lord Mayor and 
Wife." 

The attendant says: ''Do not go too near. 
Those quills are poison." 

* ' Yes, indeed, ' ' answers Avanel as the light 
dawns instantly. ''And Java is almost the 
same as Singapore. We might have known 
such beasts came from near Singapore. I have 
heard of them. They are the Singaporian 
lions. ' * 

Then we forget these beasts and walk 
eastward along the Sangamon River Drive. 
Through the openings of the trees and from 
the higher points we look back southward. 
We have had our feast and our Amaranth- 
Apples in the Sangamon Park pavilion. The 
star chimes are ringing. The towers are 
there to the south. What torch bearers 
before time have equalled these priest- 
wizards with entrails of fire? They are 
sterner than priests. They are the soldier- 
machines of liberty that will sweep the 
world. They are the Macedonian phalanx 
that will decide for another century every 
field upon which they will appear. The mer- 
chants of Singapore refuse to use the Sunset 
Towers, when they build their new cities in 



220 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

their battle for world supremacy, and even 
by that they are doomed. The houses and 
commercial palaces and temples of Singapore 
crouch little and low, like huts in a forest, or 
glass pagodas in little stage comedies. They 
are fearful of the incantations hatched in our 
hives of electrical flame that shine on to the 
glory of Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd 
Wright, who planned the first ones, a cen- 
tury ago, and the Thibetan Boy and John 
Emis, who build them today. 

Avanel and I walk south to the city down 
beautiful Fifteenth Street. The city is the 
Fair and the Fair is the city, though there 
has not yet come the formal proclamation 
to the world of the opening. There is not one 
heart on the street but ceems to be beating 
happily. The elation in the air on this perfect 
June night is worth a lifetime of groans. It 
seems to me that for this hour Springfield has 
been patiently toiling and staggering on, de- 
spite much sorrow and sin, for a century. All 
the children of this generation seem to sweep 
by us and to be spending the stored up capac- 
ity of themselves and all their ancestors for 
jubilation. 

There are hundreds of unspoiled sight- 
seers in the crowd looking on the lights of 
Springfield, often for the first time. These 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 221 

visitors will not wait for the Mayor's proc- 
lamation, that the Fair has begun. 

And they are happy, but not as we two are 
The bass viol orchestra of the lacquered and 
rumbling pleasure wagons sings a special 
song to us though we be independent walk- 
ers. We hear them, we boast, better than 
they hear themselves. There is a babble and a 
roar that is the beating of the vast heart of 
Springfield. Its rhythm goes into our foot- 
falls every instant. 

It is late, and Avanel insists on going on, 
in the intoxication of weariness, and will not 
let me take her to her house on Mulberry 
Boulevard. She leads me into the very thick 
of the great forest of Sunset Towers again, 
now "midnight towers," she says to me, with 
her face flushed to a deep crimson from utter 
weariness, and her eyes heavy with the desire 
for sleep, and her determined little feet still 
dancing nervously on. And this is what her 
soul says to me, and what we say to one an- 
other, in our fashion, as we whirl on: "Not 
nntil another civilization rises here, will there 
be a rival form to these towers. It is onl^f a 
matter of years till the type be perfected by 
John Emis or the Thibetan Boy or their kind. 
The first generation of ripened builders came 
a century ago. That was our Early Renais- 



222 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

sance. At last our High Renaissance has 
come. The ripe architectural genius will 
appear who will gather to himself all that 
can be known of beam and girder and 
truss, of foundation and wind pressure and 
the distribution of light, all that can be 
learned about hollow brick and tile, of pillar 
and elevator and fireproofing. He will under- 
stand the chances peculiar to his materials 
and town. His imagination will be a smelter, 
a mastered volcano. He will have visions of 
welded steel that will put all men to shame 
but the builders of the Parthenon, the hewers 
of the Sphinx. There shall be no borrowings 
from Paris or Rome. 

**The least minor decoration shall reflect 
the majesty of the dream, as the Gothic altar 
carving repeated the flying buttress and the 
spires leaping heavenward. 

** Because we take our pleasure at the feet 
of the Sunset Towers, now 'midnight tow- 
ers* while the midnight stars go by, they 
shall be reembodied and perfected in the sons 
that shall spring from them like light. 

' ' They are the rose and gold progenitors of 
Sprinfield, the rainbow patriarchs of Spring- 
field. They stand proudly through the night 
and the lighted streets below them are like a 
carpet of goldenrod and dandelions unrolled 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 223 

at their feet. Their heads are so far in the 
heavens they converse with their serene sister 
the moon. They look out together to the 
Springfield University and the Sangamon 
Eiver where the bridges sweep to the north, 
sparkling threads in the mist. They look 
south to the Street of Past History that bends 
around till it meets them. 

**Who shall dispraise the excellence of our 
towers ? They look west with all the pioneers, 
and the very soul of far off, west-going Daniel 
Boone is in them. 

"We take our pleasure, honorable, or philo- 
sophical, innocent or stupid or guilty, at 
their feet, and where pleasure is, there art is 
born. Many songs shall be sung to them, 
many new names given to them. Their chil- 
dren shall rise up to call them blessed. Their 
children shall be a world-conquering city all 
about them, before the relentless sun looks 
down upon their ruins, before that blazing 
lion of time shall have eaten their bones of 
steel. 

"They were born from the black soil of Illi- 
nois and from the heart of the Thibetan and 
from the Red Indian and the Afro-American 
and all the tribes of the earth. There is in 
them many an antithesis to all the old archi- 
tectures and structures. 



224 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

**The noblest thing to be seen from their 
heights is the mighty northwest road. For 
the souls' highway will stay open and crying 
for the souls of men to follow when these 
towers are dead and gone. " 

Now it is way past midnight, and we are 
at old Fifth and Monroe, and all the street 
cars and vehicles have long stopped, and the 
light in Dodds * drug store is dim, and the all- 
night clerks are nodding behind the cases, or 
chatting at the ice cream tables, half awake. 

And so Avanel and I, walking in one dream 
together, know not whether we see with the 
human eyes that perish or the eyes of eternity. 

Suddenly something oi the cty of the earth 
reaches us, and there, camping at the crossing 
of the street car tracks of Fifth and Mon- 
roe is the Handsome Medicine Man, Devil's 
Gold. He is shaking his bead covered rattle, 
making medicine, and dishonoring our souls 
with his leer. And he calls us by name as we 
stand directly in front of him. We are so 
tired from our long walk, we cannot but ad- 
mire his gilded face and his yellow magic 
blanket. 

Holding each other's hands like lovers we 
stoop and admire ourselves in the golden pool 
that flickers in the great campfire he has im- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 225 

pudently built at the crossing of tlie street 
car tracks. 

"We walk down through the pool into a 
mundane world, so perfect its materialism 
becomes magical, and into many an under- 
ground field and forest of wonder, and as we 
look into each other's faces and admire one 
another we are moving gilded images from 
head to feet. But since we are, at least, to- 
gether, a hundred-year hunger in the very 
midst of my heart is thus terribly satisfied, 
though I am frightened at a betrayal I cannot 
understand, as though the heavens themselves 
had lied. We take the wickedest pleasure in 
looking upon the yellow world around us. 
And we hear on the air the laughter of the 
Handsome Medicine Man, Devil's Gold. 



CHAPTER XIV 

HOW I MAKE CERTAIN EXPLORATIONS OF THE GREAT 

DEEP HOW I LATER FIND MYSELF THE MALAY 

SLAVE OF THE MAN FROM SINGAPORE AND 

THEREBY GET AN ENTIRELY NEW ANQLB 

ON NEW SPRINGFIELD. 

July 2, 2018: — This morning Avanel tele- 
phones to me as she is looking out of her 
bedroom window over Mulberry Boulevard 
and South Grand Avenue, she wants me to 
meet her at once on her lawn and to hurry, for 
there is a strange giant bird like a burst of 
flame, in a mulberry treetop. And so before 
it goes, (and it was there yesterday morning 
at dawn and hurried away), I am able to 
meet the Lady Avanel, as she stands in her 
hasty kimono and bedroom slippers, and goes 
wild over the marvel singing overhead and 
eating mulberries for all it is worth. It is a 
kind of Singing Bird of Paradise, lost here 
unaccountably from the tropics. Birds of 
Paradise do not sing, but most sweet music 
this one makes. He flies down the street and 
away into the sun at the moment the whole 

226 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 227 

orb appears. He seems to go to the center of 
it, like an arrow of a demi-god. 

This afternoon and evening are the final 
drill times for the solemn festival in praise 
of Hunter Kelly, on July the eleventh. I 
watch the rehearsal. It is directed by Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Third. The main 
Jances, especially the drills on chosen white 
ponies are directed by the Lady Avanel, being 
modifications of the solemn marchings and 
countermarchings of the Gordon Craig Thea- 
tre. In this eleventh of July festival to cele- 
brate Hunter Kelly's first planting of the 
Amaranth Orchards, there are to be great 
comic dancers, and clowns, but they are com- 
pletely overshadowed by the devout ceremo- 
nial processions, horseback or afoot. Like all 
rehearsals, the affair drags interminably; 
much of the stateliness is still to be taken for 
granted, till the final occasion. It is a weary 
Avanel, who sends her pony home by a friend, 
and takes dinner with me in the Lincoln Park 
Pavilion and her eyes are unnaturally bright 
and she is silent and half crying. She pulls 
her napkin to pieces and then the card, from 
nervousness. 

She says: — ''Why are you here with me, 
awkward and ill dressed man! Unmannerly 
and uncouth man ! Yokel and anarchist ! Why 



228 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

run around with that mussy old Sparrow 
Short all the time and then expect to appear 
in fashionable places?" 

And then, after a silence, she continues: — ■ 
' ' There is nothing respectable about you. All 
the best people of the city make fun of you 
and wish you would leave town. "Why do you 
stay here? Why not go to some other town 
and start fresh? You have offended all our 
first families by your queer manners and 
gauche waj^s. And you will never improve 
them as long as you run around with that 
mussy old Sparrow Short. Certainly none of 
the real people, accomplishing anything, have 
any use for you. I do not believe you even 
know how to make out a check or keep a 
bank book. And how on earth you expect to 
get along in Springfield without dancing or 
playing cards I cannot understand. 

''Why are you here, you silly man?" 

And so I say to her: ''Do you think it has 
cost me nothing to struggle up through the 
dust and the dead grass and walk beside you ? 
Do you think it has cost me nothing of pain to 
beat with my poor bare knuckles through the 
years ? ' ' 

But when I say such things to Avanel, she 
does not hear them. 

But I am determined and I say: "Last 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 229 

March you came galloping up the Northwest 
Road on your white pony, and I was buried 
too near the highway to sleep, with such glory 
going by. A man may hardly expect to live 
again beyond the life of that little earth that 
surrounds his bones, and feeds the roots of 
the nearest tree. He may, perhaps give life 
tiirough the leaves of that tree to the locust 
in the bark, or to the squirrel in the branches, 
but your song came past my grave like a 
fairy's breath, and my ashes are again man 
or fire or weed or living thorns, or what you 
will them to be. If you will have nothing of a 
man, why give life to his dust?" 

But when I say such things to Avanel, she 
does not hear them. I am a gauche beau, 
that is all . . . The mists sweep down 
upon us, and we are on the very eastern edge 
of Chaos, where it storms in upon the shore 
of created things. And Avanel 's eyes are 
sleepy and her voice is faint and far away. 
But she says: *'Do you think I dance for 
temporal Springfield, or make my pony dance 
for such a city? "We dance for an audience 
of the great deep. ' ' 

Looming across the gulf is the gigantic 
porch of the Palace of Eve, its pillars reach- 
ing up into the highest clouds of the storm, 
pillars that are Doric, archaic, immemorial. 



230 THE GOLDEN B60K OF SPRINGFIELD 

And out of the gulf between rises the vague 
splendor of Avanel's Dream City of the Great 
Deep. Avanel says: — 

"Any one with Daniel Boone's hunting 
knife in her belt needs no pompous false 
prophets of democracy to tell her the road to 
freedom. In this gulf alone is freedom, if it 
is to be found, and in this gulf only, is to- 
morrow. ' ' 

And as she speaks Avanel's Dream City of 
the Great Deep takes form and is a picture 
of the Springfield we have left behind, but 
utterly transcendent, with the Sunset Towers 
in jewelled glory, with the Truth Tower like 
a pillar hewn from the white mountains of 
the sun, and around the town, star shaped 
double walls, with the pillar oaks between 
them. But even that dream crumbles and falls 
into nothingness. It becomes a great cloud 
plain, a bridge for spirit-feet, over the gulf. 
And then I see, as I sit lonely, the real dance 
and ceremonial of Hunter Kelly begin. I see 
Avanel on her dancing pony of white fire, 
surrounded by her devoted maidens, while 
dim and shadowy similitudes of branches of 
the Amaranth-Apple, made gigantic to shade 
the Universe, bend above the far off ministers 
of stately cosmic festival. 

As I watch the dance with eyes like those 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 231 

of a far-seeing bird, I behold a dim flashing 
under the shadow of the gigantic pillars 
of the Palace of Eve. As it were, a 
candle flame in the storm, Mother Eve, the 
immortal, looks up and down those great 
pillars and up to the clouded and roaring 
zenith with its tossing flowering boughs, and 
then to the solemn dances, far away. She sees 
her fairest daughters do honor to Hunter 
Kelly, pupil and friend of Johnny Appleseed. 
Nothing stranger or more beautiful ever hap- 
pened in the shadow of her palace or beneath 
a flowering storm. 

July 4: — I am today in the wonder of a 
triple consciousness. To the sense of being 
an Anglo Saxon of the centuries of 1920 and 
2018 is added that of being a Malay of 2018: 
I find myself in the house of the Man from 
Singapore his Malay slave. I find myself 
equipped with singular habits, ideals, and 
ideas, as though I were the mainspring of a 
most unfamiliar clock. I am interested in the 
wheels that keep going. 

It is a blasting Fourth of July and one of 
the second servants, whom I have haughtily 
sent down town on an errand, tells me, on re- 
turning, that the thermometer at Dodds ' drug 
store already registers one hundred and ten 



232 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

in the shade. But we are so much over arched 
by old trees, our house is cool enough. 

Eemembering various ill-reports when I 
lived in other bodies in Springfield at this 
time, I am astonished to find the Man from 
Singapore a person of domestic grace. He has 
consideration for my feelings as a slave. He 
has an outstanding gallantry toward the dar- 
ling of his heart, his only child, Mara, the 
queen of his house. The picture of her de- 
parted mother hangs in the book room of the 
Professor of Malay Arts and Letters. It looks 
down gently upon many lounging mats and 
books left open. The face is all dignity and 
languor and devotion. 

My master's ancestors, according to his 
conversation with his daughter at late break- 
fast this morning, had an original Malay 
strain. 

But added to that was a peculiar mixture 
of Anglo Saxon remittance man, Chinese 
banker and Arab trader. It is the combina- 
tion that crystallized into the caste to which 
he now belongs, the caste that finally gave 
distinctive energy to his polyglot, world- 
shaking city, and lifted the mystic diabolism 
of the Cocaine Buddha into aggressive im- 
perialism. His new caste found themselves 
resolving to make Singapore a city wor- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 233 

shipped like Mecca, if they had to cut the 
throats of two thirds of the human race to 
bring it about. 

And so, at this late breakfast, he looks into 
his coffee languidly, but as though he saw 
pictures of history there. He says that the 
English admixture in his caste has long given 
them insight into the west, and kept English 
for their main language. The English strain 
has also given the Singaporian a facility in 
taking on the most modern scientific devices, 
and has endowed the proud island with politi- 
cal common sense for routine political tasks. 
The Chinese blood has given them patience 
and iron, to work on a hundred-year plan, first 
in their trade relations and banking arrange- 
ments, and then in all policies linked up with 
these. But now it is the sword of the far off 
ancient Arab disposition that is beginning to 
flash. 

The Man from Singapore speculates, drink- 
ing more coffee, and looking reverently at 
his daughter. He wonders what he and 
others will pay, for almost breaking caste in 
their joining themselves with the honorable 
but too voluptuous and beautiful Kling caste. 
So many of them are marrying women of her 
mother's race, and paying the high priests 
tremendous sums for the privilege. He won- 



234 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

ders if it will bring them to inefficiency, and 
Bmother the Arab before it has a chance for 
complete expression. At least her mother's 
tribe brought them their first energy, for they 
owe the gift of the Cocaine Buddha, nearly 
a century ago, to the Kling Prophet. 

July 5: — I find myself at a civic reform 
rally late this afternoon, after business hours. 
I am still the Malay servant. I am sent by 
Mara, the good and beautiful, to watch from 
a distance the doings of the young artist, 
altar-builder, coal miner, bricklayer, exqui- 
site and civic patriot: — Joseph Bartholdi Mi- 
chael, the Third. He is her adorer. She sends 
me with a note to him, urging him to come to 
a suddenly improvised Sumatra chess party. 
Like Cleopatra, she urges me to observe his 
doings narrowly, and his moods when he 
reads her note. 

Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third, is on 
the back row of seats. He will take no part 
in the meeting, though urged to do so by many 
friends around him. The Mayor's proposition 
has been voted down at the polls, his desired 
legislation to let great masses of unskilled 
labor into the city's double walls without a 
time limit on their stay and without the usual 
University examination. Now he proposes an- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 235 

other referendum. He wants to introduce his 
huskies temporarily, especially Singaporian 
bricklayers from California, since, as he says, 
our bricklaying machines have broken down 
and there is great haste to complete, in time, 
the building of the Street of Past History of 
the World's Fair of the University of Spring- 
field. 

The meeting, squeezed in between the coffee 
house chats and dinner time, has been called 
by Michael the Third's best chums among 
the older men: — Boone, and the Kabbi, who 
hope to defeat the new measure. The speak- 
ers maintain that, once these laborers are ad- 
mitted inside our double Gothic walls, it will 
be impossible to expel them, even after the 
Street of Past History is finished. They prove 
that there are enough bricklaying machines 
to fill all the present contracts on time. They 
maintain that there are endless boys in the 
High School Labor Department trained to 
follow up and finish the work in the wake of 
such machines as may surely be impressed 
into service. 

All this while that solemn conceited pump- 
kin Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third, 
thinks he is brooding like Prince Hamlet him- 
self. He will not say how much he believes 
of these accusations hurled about. 



236 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Now rises old Black Hawk Boone and I am 
indeed amazed to see him through Singapo- 
rian eyes. He looks almost like a whey-faced 
creature, he is so much whiter than my 
master. And he looks like the world's great- 
est fidget, my master is such a languorous 
cat. And for all Boone's shrewd, cinnamon 
bear countenance, he seems to me a simple 
baby, my master looks so wise. And when he 
speaks of my master by implication, I can- 
not but be insulted. For my body and nerves 
tonight are Malay, whatever my soul may be. 
And at the same time I am in a terrible fear 
of Boone as one would be of a child with 
lighted matches in a powder mill. There is in 
him a certain divination by force of fury that 
I cannot but shrink to apprehend, though I 
utterly despise his mind, as long as I wear 
this Malay body as a garment and make shift 
with these Malay eyes and ears and this Malay 
sixth sense. 

Boone's fury is everything. His words are 
nothing. In his capacity as editor and citizen, 
and not as President of the Board of Educa- 
tion, he denounces my master, who is entitled 
to official courtesy as a member of the Uni- 
versity faculty. But it is plainly in Boone's 
thought that the time has almost come for the 
parting with the course in Malay Arts and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 237 

Letters and Allied Studies, and the dismissal 
of all oracles therein, though they be the most 
learned oracles in the whole world, and the 
most courteous creatures above ground. 
Boone snaps out his words like a beast strain- 
ing at a chain. 

He says these conspirators have long 
thought they could buy everything, includ- 
ing the souls of all state capitals. He tells 
how, nearly a century ago, Singapore pur- 
chased its freedom from the British Govern- 
ment at an enormous fee, furnished by the 
Chinese Chamber of Commerce of that city. 
He tells how the port was immediately lifted 
from the rank of seventh to the rank of first 
in the world. He shows how, after the death 
of the prophet of the Cocaine Buddha and the 
local triumph of the religion, this zeal for 
purchase became Singapore's most eloquent 
service in that Buddha's name. They bought 
at any price every island north of Australia 
and south of Japan, including America 's own 
Philippines. He charges that the war in south- 
east Asia, a generation ago, was stirred up 
by their spies, and while they were ostensibly 
with the "World Government, the war ended 
with a vast increase of their territory by di- 
rect purchase of land and the bribing of many 
new and feeble legislatures to vote themselves 



238 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

into the Singaporian Union. Finally lie rises 
to the height of mere abuse. He lets slip a 
most appalling avalanche in the name of his 
western God. And he says this Mayor and his 
boss have in some way been over-persuaded 
by a Singaporian spy, present in the city or 
writing to them, and petitioning that they 
send for these workmen, who come in as rough 
labor. But that *' labor" will send by wire- 
less, code reports to the high priests of the 
Cocaine Buddha. 

The whole house rises, and the harder 
Boone denounces, the more they seem to ap- 
prove, and some of them seem to have the 
hydrophobia. Race hate sweeps the hall like 
a blasting wind. And Boone crouches at the 
very edge of the footlights, and roars on. 

He declares that some of this alleged rough 
labor is morally certain to be a group of high 
officers of the army, here to paralyze America 
at the exact second the high priests of Singa- 
pore shall choose, using that dreadful secret 
gun, that it is whispered through all the 
world, is two steps beyond the terrible lens 
gun. 

Meanwhile these Singaporians, open and 
secret, will corrupt the "wild and innocent 
young blood of our city. Boone charges that 
the island capital is the world's Barbary 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 239 

coast, the one infamy beyond Suez. Among 
all the world 's red-eyed and fish-eyed human 
derelicts, where cocaine is used to over-en- 
ergize, and to make men flashy and reckless, 
there always their spies are busiest, and their 
missionaries are most pertinacious and suc- 
cessful. The world around, ''SINGAPORE 
IS COCAINE." 

Boono continues, in an utterly different 
manner. There is that curious slender girl 
near the front seat with her companions, 
the Lady Avanel, and he does not want 
to seem to be speaking of her. But he 
says that these Singaporians are as afraid 
of white as the native soldiers of the 
Indian mutiny were afraid of breaking cast 
in their fashion, or the Egyptians were, — 
which enabled Cambyses to defeat them by 
heading his procession against them with a 
small and famous army of kittens. He says 
they are as afraid of white as the negroes of 
the South were afraid of it, which enabled the 
Klu Klux to send them scattering. It is no 
idle fancy of his that these people are as 
superstitious as the blacks of the old days. 
He says that in the last war of the World Gov- 
ernment against the rebels of Asia, where 
Chinese, Japanese and Americans won so 
great a victory for world unity, there were a 



240 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

few Singaporians among the rebels, de- 
nounced by the Singaporian high priests, but 
these rebels seemed secretly authorized, and 
they had the typical lens gun equipment and 
the complete cocaine soul. And Boone tells 
what is evidently a familiar story, how one of 
the Springfield Amazons found a mysterious 
white pony on the battlefield, after her own 
had been shot under her. .She rode him to the 
front line and drove a whole company of those 
cocaine fiends in flight, lens guns and all, with 
nothing in her hand but her Michael-forged 
blade. Boone says the Singaporians hate 
white because it is the color of truth and day- 
time and decency, and as for him, if he had 
had his way he would have painted every 
tower of this World's Fair white, and the 
inner and outer walls of the city white, to 
keep out the Singaporian spies and mission- 
aries, but Slick Slack Kopensky and Mayo 
Sims won a victory for the present color 
scheme. 

Then young Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the 
Third, to keep himself right with his friends, 
throws off his coat, and goes forward in 
the bricklayer's clothes he has been wearing 
beneath. As a former High School student- 
bricklayer and one often practicing that pro- 
fession still, he pledges himself to go out and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 241 

work one of the bricklaying machines, or use 
the old fashioned trowel, as is needed, until 
the Fair buildings are done. And he calls for 
volunteers to join him, and many of the gay 
j^oung bloods do so at once. 

So this evening as I serve the black Siamese 
wine to the Man from Singapore and his 
daughter, and I stand respectfully at her left 
hand, and give my report while her wonder- 
ful smiles come and go, she clasps her hands 
and tries to be gay over old Boone. But her 
eyes are tragic pools, indeed, when I speak of 
her lover, and of the evident conflict in his 
heart. And now it is her father's turn to 
laugh and try to shift her mood. 

''They blame me with their own petty do- 
ings and are always suspicious at the wrong 
time. They never know when I am fighting 
the real tigers in the holy cause of our High 
Priests. Not as a Singaporian, but as a man, 
I am going to give this town a blow with my 
left hand. One more word from that baby, that 
bawling Boone, holding me in contempt, and 
then let him look to himself. It is done more 
simply than he knows. The distrust of all 
leaders of every faction from Mayo Sims to 
Boone is growing every hour. Even those 
leaders love a lynching, if it removes an en- 
emy. They went to the funeral of Surto Hur- 



242 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

denburg for respectability's sake, not to 
mourn him. Not one of all the City Council 
or the Board of Education put in an extra 
hour seeing that his lynchers were brought 
to trial. They are all lynchers and one needs 
hardly to accelerate their natural gait a bit, 
but only to fail to warn them of what their 
own may do. Certainly the Board of Edu- 
cation would be insulted if they knew that 
Sims and Kopensky are as alien and unknown 
to us as are Boone and Saint Friend. If they 
are putting on their fights to edify us, the 
attempt is a failure. I sincerely hope that 
Sims and Kopensky and Boone are hanged by 
their adoring citizens side by side on the same 
tree. But Montague Rock, I hope, will be 
spared to us. He is a fine paw. I will tell you 
that much, little Mara. ' * 



CHAPTER XV 

HOW AS A MALAY I WITNESS THE CONVERSION OF 

YOUNG KOPENSKY TO THE COCAINE BUDDHA, 

LATER WHEN I AM MY AMERICAN SELF 

THE THIBETAN BOY TAKES ME 

BEYOND THE NORTH STAR 

AND SHOWS ME THE 

TRUE BUDDHA. 

July 6, 2018: — This afternoon Mara sends 
me to find Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the 
Third, and report once more. I discover that 
he has been at work according to his pledge, 
and with a bricklaying machine. There are 
more than enough, both of machines and 
Springfield workers to complete the Street 
of Past History on time. 

And so, this evening, the Kling beauty 
dawdles through her black wine and cigar- 
ettes looking at her father with an indulgent 
and patronizing squint, completely at ease in 
the possession of his heart. Though with so 
many other strains of ancestry, the Malay 
manner predominates tonight, in her as in 
him, an outer appearance of super languor, 
a suggestion of nerve force accumulating 

243 



244 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

through long seasons, to be discharged in one 
day of supreme achievement, or of "running 
amuck. ' ' 

Suddenly Mara asks her father, as though 
to plague him all she dares and startle him 
from his languor: ''How do I differ from 
Avanel Boone? We are, for instance, the 
same age." He answers without a quiver: 
"She is a worthy daughter of Black Hawk 
Boone, except that she will not dye her left 
hand or wear her hair on her shoulders, and 
you are a worthy daughter of your father, 
except that you like to quiz. ' ' 

And she opens her eyes and they seem the 
wide gates of his Prophet 's heaven. And they 
have, to him, all the dewiness of honest youth. 
She asks with earnestness: — 

"But how do we differ?" 

He defies those eyes. He says: "Both have 
dark hair, but AvanePs is straight like that 
of the Japanese, and yours is a storm cloud 
about your head. 

"But how do we differ? You need not deny 
you have studied that girl like a book. I have 
seen you watching her as though she were a 
growing scorpion, looking her over and over, 
at the Gordon Craig Theatre. 

"She is no scorpion, but an artless child. 
Her eyes are blue. Your eyes are black. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 245 

Avanel's skin is white and rose. You are more 
golden than any coin or any sunrise. That is 
the difference." And he smiles with an air 
of mock finality. 

But there is more difference and my Ameri- 
can soul fights my Malay body and mind, as 
I apprehend this distinction, while they argue 
of other matters. I find torturing the very 
depths of me, that which loves Avanel, though 
I lie in this Malay grave. Yet the comparison 
is not all to the advantage of the daughter of 
Boone. 

Avanel follows the most conventional of 
Vanity Fair and Vogue fashion plates, when 
not a marching, dancing priestess or an eques- 
trienne in white. The Kling beauty is in her 
library or in her palanquin wrapped in end- 
less easy swathings of green silk from breast 
to knee. Her bare shoulders and knees and 
feet and hands are her father's pride. He 
thinks there is nothing like their slender 
modelling in all the west. She is a singer with 
the Borneo harp. Avanel in her life as a reli- 
gious dancer and leader of maiden cavalry 
and of the Horseshoe Brotherhood, is an un- 
maidenly horror to Mara, who prides herself 
on her seclusion. Avanel's omnipresence on 
the streets, as the town heroine, seems to 
Mara America's most complete scandal. 



246 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Yet Mara has often been out in her palan- 
quin, behind that of her father, ostensibly to 
please him, but actually to see if by chance 
this hated Avanel will go by. And she has 
brooded in seclusion over Avanel as much as 
such a gentle nature can. 

Finally, and chiefly, that rare mask, the 
face of Mara is the same her father wears, and 
so is half a world away from the open counte- 
nance of the lady who carries Daniel Boone 's 
direct ancestral dagger. Yet there are things 
readable in the Singaporian countenances. 
The sincere passion for jungle beauty re- 
vealed in the face of Mara can be discerned. 
The Asiatic necromancy, the instinct for intri- 
gue, is hidden by the innocence of the experi- 
ences of her sheltered days, and also, as in 
the face of her really wicked father, it is hid- 
den by that University air of submitting ab- 
solutely to the open finalities of scholarship. 
And so they will often submit, where Singa- 
pore is not concerned. But one would say all 
Mara's scholars are poets to her, and of her 
father all his scholars are statesmen. Each is 
the other's flattering image. Each is disarmed 
in the presence of the other, artless and fond 
and kind. 

She continues this evening by talking 
frankly with her father about her suitors. I 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 247 

am as a well worn article of furniture. My 
ears do not trouble her. Are we not all mem- 
bers of the order that has sworn in a great 
whisper to conquer the world in the name of 
the holy green glass image that dwells in the 
temple on the far off Raffles plain? 

She asks her father which man will be of 
the greater service to Our Lord of Cocaine f 
Will it be the son of Slick Slack Kopensky, 
Crawling Jim : — or Joseph Bartholdi Michael, 
the Third, who thinks he has converted my 
good mistress to Mary of Bethlehem and all 
the saints of the western heaven. Shall she do 
lip service to his faith, when he is present, 
till the day of all days when Singapore ceases 
to whisper and comes roaring against the 
world! Or shall she take Crawling Jim for 
all time? 

She is remarkably interested in both men. 
I am all curiosity over her tenderness for 
Jim. She calls him James. To be sure, he has 
undertaken a perilous thing for a son of 
Springfield. He has already discarded the 
wearing of anything white. 

July 7: — There are not many other Singa- 
porians in the city, and tonight comes an all- 
Caucasian party except for servants, host 
and hostess. My amazement about Mara's at- 



248 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

titude toward James now ceases. In this com- 
pany he is a new creature. 

The ladies and gentlemen who come in for 
initiation into that curiosity, a Sumatra chess 
game are many of them Jim's most devoted 
henchmen in Jim's presumably highly demo- 
cratic and now triumphant Robin Redbreast 
Aviation Club. They were deft enough to 
capture the club for him. They are people 
of breeding and assurance. As long as it ex- 
isted, at the house of the Mythical Veleska 
the most famous yellow dance hall, they set 
the pace. Tonight they talk openly of their 
jolly little lynching of Surto Hurdenburg. 
They talk of how to bring back to town all 
the malcontents who have left because of the 
suppression of the Yellow Halls. They speak 
of them as martyrs and heroes. And then 
they talk as though they will leave also. With 
scarcely an exception they belong to Spring- 
field's senior families, many of whom have 
been here as long as the Boones, and some 
of them before the Michaels. Scions of the 
house of Montague Rock are among them, in- 
cluding Montague Rock, Junior. 

By their voices and a thousand impalpable 
signs I know that, with scarcely an exception, 
they have been educated out of town at male 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 249 

and female finishing schools, on funds or 
power secured by the secret sale of their he- 
reditary buried gold and buried alcohol. These 
schools are, obviously, the last stand of 
American plutocracy, that has grown most 
subtle in what appears to be its final battle. 
Here, at this party among friends, with no 
spies, and in perfect confidence, they use with 
an exaggerated freedom all the secret codes, 
passwords, and hints of manner that indicate 
the hidden masters of the land, the tribes 
with buried gold and buried alcohol. 

They are well grounded in the main books 
of plutocratic and alcoholic apologetics, one 
of which has been written by a fellow towns- 
man, and it appears today, in Coe's Book 
Store: — ''The Graces of Bacchus and Mam- 
mon" by Doctor Mayo Sims. Every poet, 
architect, artist, or musician who in any 
fine indirect way licks the boots of money, or 
sings sweetly of strong drink, has their ap- 
proval. Many such craftsmen have been in- 
duced by gentle means to drop a delicate 
word for Singapore as the ultimate land of 
real aristocracy, and dangerous but marvel- 
ously inspiring cocaine. 

Mara's guests have been taught in these 
out of town schools to hate our educational 



250 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

system from the "World's Fair of our Univer- 
sity down to the first grade, ward school. They 
are taught in their male and female finishing 
schools that the whole city of Springfield and 
all such cities are infamously democratic. 
These children are taught they must not 
let one tone of voice indicate anything more 
than a suffering tolerance of that system of 
which, in this city, Black Hawk Boone is the 
official head. 

As the evening progresses, all this crowd 
gaily says that Jim's luck in aviation holds 
in Sumatra chess, and the ladies whisper in 
their delicate fashion that they hope he stays 
lucky when it comes to love. 

Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third, enters 
late. He says he is tired from bricklaying and 
slumps into the most conspicuous chair like 
a second rate actor's idea of a martyr to pa- 
triotism. Michael, the Third, will not play 
Sumatra or any other chess. He will not bet 
on any other man's chess playing. He glares 
at the merry Jim, or in his general direction. 
He stalks around, like a stork at a dinner of 
foxes. 

The crowd thins out, and at length the two 
men are left with Mara, because J. B. Michael, 
the Third, has not sense enough to go. She 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 251 

has given Jim Kopensky every sign and Mi- 
chael, the Third, no signs at all. 

She wants this exquisite scion of the Black- 
smith clan to play the game, and take his 
chance. But he is more at ease in his patriotic 
overalls, laying bricks to hurry up the final 
official opening of the Fair, and the Street of 
Past History. 

So she helps Kopensky to back Michael 
to the door, which is done by a simple pro- 
cess of walking toward him with a certain air. 

He is overwhelmed at Jim's assurance and 
vital power. But Jim is one of those whom 
love makes a man for an hour in a lifetime. 
As I open the door for the exquisite Michael, 
I divine Mara 's pity for him. But what can a 
woman do? No proud Singaporian can have 
mercy on an unmagnetic fool. It is not a con- 
spiracy against the loser. It is an elemental 
contest. This red oriental heart is for the 
man who wins this doorstep fight. Religion 
and destiny wait. And J. B. Michael, the 
Third, of his own weakness goes out the door 
in defeat. 

But Mara, having, without an uttered word, 
chosen this James Kopensky for what she 
can make of him, turns at once to the cocaine 
Buddha around the corner of the hall. Relig- 
ion comes next. 



252 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

The triumphant Jim follows her thought. 
He takes a candle from the table. He holds it 
in front of the august image, that seems to 
him more like green air than glass. He bows, 
the complete devotee before that ironical god 
whose doctrines are absurd, even to me, 
though I am for a season in a Malay mind. 
But what doctrines are not absurd to that 
soul that refuses to receive them? 

Jim blows out the candle, and with it his 
former life, and, in intention, every western 
desire, and all for the glory of the holy islands 
of southeast Asia. He relights the candle at 
a taller one that is burning in front of the 
image. 

Just then a telegram comes. Later I am 
reproved for letting the boy make the turn in 
the hall that enables him to see Crawling Jim 
light the candle. It is a real telegram, that 
has to do with an out-of-town lecture to be 
given by the Man from Singapore, on ''The 
Republic of Letters." And so the lord of the 
house comes in for it, reads it, and signs. The 
boy is not hustled to the door. He lingers. 
Our little ceremony is quite interrupted. 

At last the slow youth goes. He is the son 
of a Japanese Industrial Commissioner to the 
World 's Fair. It seems that this man and the 
Chinese Commissioner are sufficiently Asiatic 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 253 

to understand my master, and their subter- 
ranean feud with him and his ally, Old Monta- 
gue Rock, never has an end. The Man from 
Singapore says: ''They must have had their 
spy at the party tonight. And this telegram 
has been delayed as part of their game." 

And so, soon after, the flustered Jim bids 
his lady a devout good evening. 

July 8: — Mara has been nervous about the 
Springfield fortunes of her accepted suitor 
all day, but he reports this evening that there 
is no cause for apprehension, that he has not 
noted one more fluttering eyelid than usual 
to-day. He is still in place, in Springfield. 

Then Mara makes ardent haste to talk with 
Jim of the religion into which he took a deci- 
sive, if interrupted, first step last evening. 
There is a bit of a suppressed strain and the 
harshness of argument in her voice, as though 
she were debating with all Springfield, though 
Springfield is not here. She is showing Jim 
that the Singaporian aversion to white, color- 
less things, is in no way unreasonable, since 
the religion was born in a sweet shadowed 
jungle. The whitest thing to be found in such 
a woods is the patch of dried grass in the 
opening of the trees under the blasting rays 
of the noonday sun. The living creature who 
lingers there must die. The prophet had 



254 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

talked so long to the religious beasts that he 
learned the inner wisdom of this fear. By lis- 
tening long to their stories and their teach- 
ings, white came to mean the death of the soul 
to him. When he returned to Singapore and 
preached his first sermon that shadowy eve- 
ning on the Eaffles plain, proclaiming the 
religion of night, the religion of prowling, 
of rich wines and sweeping hanging moss, 
he gave them the Holy Green Glass Idol, 
and extended the doctrine of the fear of 
whiteness. It was there revealed to him, 
as he spoke with inspiration, that the 
whiter the silver, the whiter the horse, the 
whiter the armor, the whiter the plume, the 
more dangerous the foe. And so Mara assures 
Jim that all the deadliest enemies of the faith 
will come in the open noonday, dressed in 
white. If Singapore conquers all things white, 
and all the noonday races of men it will win 
the world. If once it falls before an army in 
white, it will be utterly annihilated, and the 
Holy Religion of Cocaine will perish from 
the earth. 

Mara asks Crawling Jim if this is not per- 
fectly reasonable, as doctrine and as proph- 
ecy. He falls before her. He embraces her 
golden knees with his crazy arms. He says 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 255 

it is perfectly reasonable, as doctrine and as 
prophecy. 

But she lifts him up and she preaches and 
kisses away the hours, like any devout lady 
in like case. 

July 9: — Mara is saying to Jim this eve- 
ning that while in the by streets of her holy 
city among the dregs of the world's popula- 
tion, much cocaine is taken, in the presence of 
grotesque libels of the Green Glass Buddha, 
as a matter of fact, that is a degenerate form 
of the religion. It is well enough since it keeps 
the outcasts happy and in subjection, more 
easily led, yet fierce in battle like the old 
hashish-eating assassins. But the esoteric, 
the masters, do not take cocaine. She speaks 
lovingly of the Green Glass Buddha, but say- 
ing finally of him, with the University Tone 
of Voice, that he is the god of wine. Like 
Dionysius he is especially the inspiration of 
the drama and all the arts that gather rouTid 
it. Upon those patrons of drugs, the two 
greatest civilizations have been founded and 
the fairest catalogue of the arts. 

It seems to me this evening, that the lessons 
are done. Mara has called to me to go for 
her father. I have ushered him into the room, 
and he is receiving Jim, the son of the Mayor 



256 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

of Springfield, as his own son. The Man from 
Singapore takes on a manner Jim has never 
seen. There are tears in his carved eyes. He 
is the headlong devotee in the infatuation of 
proselyting. 

He tells Jim that those who are faithful 
take on the soul of the holy green glass idol, 
which was long ago the pure and transparent 
spirit of the first king of the boa constrictors, 
who, it is recorded, ruled his tribe in integrity 
and crystal honor. It is in his service that 
Singapore goes forth to choke the earth. 
From the god of glass emanate rays of psy- 
chic force that extend world wide, and give 
his followers spiritual eyes so they can do 
battle for him in the forest of Christianity and 
civilization. The war is really between these 
faithful ones and the tiger souls that infest 
the jungle. The vendetta of the serpents 
against the tigers has gone on through the 
ages since before there were men. It will not 
be ended till all the tigers are gone and the 
Great Boa Constrictor swallows the world as 
though it were a rabbit. 

The Man from Singapore says that the 
tigers feed on all men from wantonness, while 
the serpents kill only those who interfere with 
the spread of their beneficent kingdom and 
eat only when hungry. Before the eyes of the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 257 

true priests of the serpent, all buildings turn 
to forest trees and all shadows to forest 
boughs, and all men to serpents or tigers or 
some neutral beasts. Thus we know our most 
dangerous foes. These are not necessarily the 
men who curse us. They are often our in- 
tended friends, but actually in the way of the 
God of Glass. Thus there is no real serpent 
among the citizens of Springfield but Monta- 
gue Eock. He is indeed a good Singaporian. 
All the other men in power, be they friends or 
foes in the open, are tigers alike. Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Second, at the seat of 
World Government, is the worst tiger of all. 
He is proscribed and doomed. 

The Man from Singapore eyes Jim steadily 
and continues: — '^Does that seem reasonable 
to you? And does all I have said seem clear, 
logical, infallibly convincing?" 

Jim takes the hand of this man and says 
it is absolutely convincing. I note that Jim 
looks like a composite portrait of the heirs 
apparent of all the thrones left in Europe, a 
weak and pasty fool, but lit up by love. 

July 10: — Crawling Jim lives but in the 
eyes of Mara. Everything Singaporian is 
reasonable while she smiles, and it is all rea- 
sonable to her. This doctrine of swallowing 
the world seems merciful because ''father" 



258 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

says it is. And Jim seems to her like a man. 
He is aflame with desire, such as only the 
daughter of her voluptuous and gentle mother 
could provoke, and only such a strong soul as 
hers could harness. He is a mirror, pouring 
back the rays of her own romantic glory, and 
she knows it not. She is incredibly happy, for 
she thinks she has done a good stroke for 
Singapore and her own heart. I, even as a 
Malay, am stirred with a great pity for her. 

Her father, also, sees Jim as a hero. The 
serpent Buddha has not made this man and 
his daughter infallible. 

July 11: — Mara is .lear the window looking 
out through the black velvet hangings, watch- 
ing for Jim, though it is not time for him to 
call. Meanwhile there is indeed an interrup- 
tion to her fancies, she utters not a word, she 
does not flinch, while there comes north on 
Mulberry Boulevard Avanel Boone and her 
maiden cavalry. 

They are going toward the grave of Hunter 
Kelly, to take part in the solemn festival in 
the groves there, and along the great North- 
west Road, the festival in celebration of the 
planting of the first Amaranth orchard there. 
The girls go by like a white whirlwind, 
and they give the old Springfield cry used 
in battle in Asia by their mothers who 



N 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 259 

were young amazons before them. It shrieks 
and screams and sings down the street: 
''Springfield Awake! Springfield Aflame!" 
They know they are going by the house of 
Mara of Singapore but not one eye turns 
her way. But the swords, the swords, the 
Damascus blades, are hissing and glittering 
in the air. And the Man from Singapore, ap- 
parently intent upon his affairs does not 
turn to look out of the window of the book 
room. He does not so much as look up from 
his book of Malay lyrics. He utters one 
phrase : ' * The Cats of Cambyses, if we are to 
take Black Hawk Boone at his word. ' ' 

I am temporarily of the Singaporians, in 
my way. I have their poisoned eyes, it seems. 
So, while I have watched, horse and rider 
have faded into something new and strange. 
They go by in semblance as beautiful white 
tigers. 

But what of Mara, who regards me as an 
article of furniture ? What has she seen 1 Ap- 
parently nothing but Springfield girls on a 
wild, lovely, sweet, shrieking revel to which 
she has not been invited. She feels ' ' snubbed. ' ' 
She is lonely, weary, in this house and city, 
though she has a lover and a convert coming 
within the hour. 

For, after these girls have gone by, she 



260 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

turns to the Cocaine Buddha. She bows with 
hands and arms outspread. Hers is a strange 
cry and prayer : — 

''Master of the World, tell me, am I more 
beautiful than Avanel Boone ? ' ' 

Which proves to me that Mara is only a 
girl. 

July 12: — I find myself in all respects an 
American citizen of Springfield, Illinois, to- 
day, as of old. The hours with Mara and her 
father are as a ' ' tale of little meaning, though 
the words are strong. " As I wander through 
a July rain in our streets, and parks, many 
vague hands seem stretched from the ground, 
catching me by the heels. 

It is much later in the afternoon. The storm 
is gone, and I am walking with the lady 
Avanel, and she has looked into my eyes and 
given me my life again. 

We confess to one another that these days 
are certainly not the millennium, that many 
of them are as grotesque as the early geo- 
logic ages, that had their monster sloths and 
lizards big as whales, and what you will. 
Avanel says with her happy laughter: **Let 
no man declare that the end of time is soon 
approaching. ' ' 

The lady Avanel has sometimes what might 
be called the mood of butterfly wings, and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 261 

this afternoon, as we go further north 
across the fields, we are suddenly walking 
on a crimson cloud a little above the trees 
and then that cloud on its borders takes on 
slowly, first from the edges, the aspect of the 
wings of a giant butterfly whose body is at 
last the raft on which we stand and ride. 
And toward the North Star we go, and when 
we reach it, there sits a most grotesque 
and turtle-headed dwarf that Avanel calls a 
gnome. The North Star is really a hill of 
dandelions, and the dwarf is sitting at the 
foot of the hill. 

We dismount from our cloud and the dwarf 
goes with us down a corridor in the hill. 
There are on one side mirrors where details 
are dimmed, where only big clear outlines of 
a possible new Springfield are shown, and 
near by are shown plans for other similar vil- 
lages in the world. On the other side are 
mirrors into which we look and see greatly 
magnified the raw machinery of a possible 
Springfield in sections that any one can un- 
derstand. Then we speed along through the 
passageway and at last come through and see 
the light of the north sky on the other side 
of that gorgeous dandelion hill. 

The hill seems to be on the very edge of 
things, and though it has much of the aspect 



262 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

of that place to the east where I saw the Great 
Palace of Eve, once upon a time, the Dwarf 
calls this present cliff disrespectfully: "The 
Jumping-off Place." And Avanel seems 
amused and exhilarated. But waves of outer 
darkness, into which I have looked so often, 
dash upon the cliff. 

The Dwarf says: ''This particular Jump- 
ing-off Place is one of the principal suburbs 
of Springfield, and I have seen all kinds of 
Springfield people and dreams jump off 
here. ' ' 

Then, while we wait interminably, the 
gnome lets down an iron bucket by a long 
rope, and brings it up full of the per- 
petually burning soul bones of animals, men, 
and dreams that have jumped off. He says: 
**We live by the death of these." And he 
gathers the flames off the top as though they 
were burning flowers and his hands were iron. 
And he pours the bones back with a great 
thunder into the deep of the Jumping-off 
Place. Then he eats of the terrible burning 
petals and makes us eat them. Then he leads 
us back through the corridors and we seem 
to have been given eyes to see and remember 
every detail of the microscopic cross section 
of Springfield and he sends us back riding on 
the butterfly cloud, and enjoins the Lady 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 263 

Avanel to help in the building of Springfield, 
day after day. 

July 13: — Today I meet the Thibetan Boy 
in Coe 's Book Store. We are both rather aim- 
lessly turning over the magazines, and, after 
I have observed his idleness awhile, I take him 
out for a walk and say: ''Why do you look 
at me when you pass, with your eyes a story 
untold? All the while I have walked the 
streets of this New Springfield, you have 
looked at me so. 

He answers slowly, almost whispering: — 

*'Your fathers came from the ancient 
Christian world. My fathers came from the 
more ancient Buddhist world. Christ is my 
master but I cannot deny that Buddha is my 
friend. This is the hour for friends. Come 
with me. ' ' We walk north on Mulberry Boule- 
vard, past the House of the Man from Singa- 
pore, and then west on Carpenter toward a 
little highway that finally joins the great 
Northwest Road. But we have not gone far 
on the Great Northwest Road till we flash 
past the Gothic double walls of our city. 

The Thibetan Boy takes me, in one in- 
stant, to the far edge of Space and Time, 
way beyond the North Star and its dande- 
lions. And as we stand on the shaking shore 
of Space and Time we see and hear, rolling in 



264 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

from Chaos, endless smoke and glory and 
darkness and dissolving foam. Standing be- 
side us, like a superb Gandhara sculpture 
that has taken on life is that Prince Siddartha 
who was the founder of Buddhism. He stands 
in that aspect he had, while still a citizen 
and householder, and twenty-four centuries 
before his green glass libel cursed mankind. 

Before us is, indeed, a vision of Buddha the 
dreamer, superb, thoroughbred, in all the 
,iewels of his tribe. It is the hour before he 
took chariot and drove forth from home. We 
are back in that hour when he looked upon all 
things, and saw them as a dissolving foam, 
the hour before he set forth for his victory 
over this crumbling universe. His eyes are 
fixed upon those waves that roll in forever, 
that keep their forms an instant, and are 
gone for all time: some of men, some of 
wraiths and gods, some of planets and comets 
and suns. 

He turns around and beckons and over the 
sand comes Channa, the superb charioteer, 
and the horses of that chariot are nobler than 
the horses of the sun. Prince Siddartha is in 
the chariot in an instant and they drive out 
into that sea and the wheels of that chariot 
ride the waves. Those horses are like light- 
ning, climbing waves that are like hills and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 265 

mountains, till chariot, horses, and men all 
are veiled by the endless smoke and glory and 
darkness and dissolving foam. The Thibetan 
boy says to me: ^ 'It is the * Great Going Forth 
from Home,' and thus Buddha becomes a 
conquerer, and Chaos and the Universe are 
put beneath him. ' ' 

But the star chimes behind us are ringing 
new tunes and we are back in our city again, 
leaving Prince Siddartha to conquer what he 
will. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE RETURN OF SENATOR JOSEPH BARTHOLDI 

MICHAEL FROM THE WORLD GOVERNMENT TO 

SPRINGFIELD. HIS CONVERSE OF HIGH IMPORT 

WITH A JAPANESE ELDER STATESMAN WHO 

IS A COMMISSIONER TO OUR WORLD'S FAIR. 

July 14, 2018: — The regular session of the 
World Senate has ended, and all the talk in 
the coffee houses is of the imminent return 
of Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, 
namesake of the high dandy of one hundred 
years, ago, himself a reversion to tribe 
still further, in that he is a replica of the 
Iron Gentleman, except that he has a hot- 
ter temper in old age, which makes him a 
most tigerish fighter in the World Senate. 

Today, being the Iron Gentleman's birth- 
day, is a family festival with the Michaels 
and, in the very early morning, before there 
are any passers by, the leading representa- 
tives of the family are hand in hand in silence 
around the original forge of the Iron Gentle- 
man, for a little while. The bellows is blow- 
ing and the fire is high and there is the 

266 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 267 

beginning of a blade in the flame, for they 
remember that he has said: '*I will return 
to you only in the leaping flame of the forge 
fire.'* Then they repeat the Lord's Prayer 
and disperse, before the town is awake, leav- 
ing, according to custom, one man to finish 
the blade, at his leisure : — in this case Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Third. 

St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, has told me 
that the Michaels in general have old fash- 
ioned Bible reading in their homes, with old 
hymns and family prayers, every morning or 
evening no matter what pet heresies may be 
running through the tribe. Not many of them 
accept the formally designed altars of Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Third, they have left 
here hammering a blade, unless they are di- 
rect fanatical converts to the Flower Religion. 

This evening I find myself one of a party in 
the library of St. Friend. We have been 
given an uplifting welcome by the saint, and 
the Thibetan Boy. Joseph Bartholdi Michael, 
the Third, the non-entity whose fortunes seem 
always thrust upon me, is of the party. Black 
Hawk Boone is there. Our special guest is 
Sake Shioya, one of the Elder Statemen of 
Japan, and in America because he is head of 
the Department of Asiatic Art in the World 's 
Fair of the University of Springfield. At 



268 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

home, when not in the Japanese Cabinet, he 
is professor Sake Shioya of the Doshisha Uni- 
versity of Japan, and brother of Nataro 
Shioya, the leading Japanese representative 
in the Senate of the World Government. 

For a lifetime the brothers have shouted 
through Japan: **We will strike off the head 
of the Singapore Snake with the Sword of 
the Samurai." St. Friend passes round the 
cigars and, himself, sticks to his corncob pipe. 
Perhaps it is because we are under the 
portrait of Alexander Campbell our talk 
turns to religious controversy. St. Friend 
says: **The world over, Jew, Catholic, Protes- 
tant, used to hate each other to the point of 
slaughter, though all spoke the name of 
Abraham and several other patriarchs with 
the same reverence, and invoked Abraham's 
tribal God. Now the Marxians of the world 
revere Marx and Hegel as these others did 
Abraham and Jehovah, but the only way to 
keep them from cutting each other's throats 
is for the World Government to stand be- 
tween them." 

"Indeed it is true," confirms Shioya, **The 
Purple Flag Marxians of Japan, the Yellow 
Flag Marxians of China, the White Flags of 
Thibet, the Black Flags of Russia, the Red 
Flags of Central Europe, the Gray Flags of 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 269 

America, all conspire against one another, 
with at least five times fiye which is twenty- 
five hates, in all, to be mathematical. Yet 
they all read the same Marx to tatters. When 
the Yellow Flag Marxians of China agree 
among themselves sufficiently to fall upon the 
Purples of Japan, a thing we are momently 
expecting, the World Government will have 
a stern police duty, especially since both 
sides are being urged on by Singapore." 

Samiri Shioya, that austere old man, 
continues, saying that which he can more 
gracefully say than any of the rest of us: 
** Instead of a world of three classes, special 
priviliged, middle class, and peasantry, as 
these Marxians think it to be, it is, from my 
brother's standpoint and my own, a globe 
whose seas and continents are spread with 
fifty to one hundred antagonistic races, mutu- 
ally repellent. These fifty to one hundred 
races dye thoroughly, with the dye of race- 
mysticism, any economic teaching they take 
up. So practical world statesmanship, from 
the Japanese standpoint and I am glad to say, 
from the standpoint of the fiery Michael also, 
has dealt with race. Our statesmen advocated 
the principle of one vote to every main tribe 
in the world and fractional votes in due pro- 
portion to the size of the small tribes, long 



270 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

before your Michael entered the Senate, and 
every speech he has made there to strengthen 
that doctrine has been cheered from end to 
end of Japan. ' ' 

July 15: — Senator Joseph Bartholdi 
Michael is here and has refused the conspicu- 
ous first place in the great sunset parade and 
drill held in his honor and has taken his place 
in the ranks with his son, and has demanded 
that the whole ceremony be in honor of the 
Star Spangled Banner and the International 
Flag. Those flags have been put up in special 
size and splendor, all over the town, even 
more than is the custom. And the borders 
of the parks around Camp Lincoln are one 
tremendous fleet of these banners, I find my- 
self on the drill ground near the aged Japan- 
ese statesman. I am huddled on the side of 
the reviewing platform with the newspaper 
men, and we watch those strange Japanese 
eyes, and are amazed at his fiery enthusiasm 
for the International Flag. The reviewing 
platform is by the famous wrought-iron 
gates, hammered out by the Iron Gentleman 
and his three sons and three daughters. 

Just as he named the sword ''The Avanel 
Sword," knowing not of the child who was 
coming in one hundred years, he named these 
''The Avanel Gates," for the perhaps mythi- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 271 

cal Avanel of more than one hundred years 
ago. 

These gates are massive and towering, yet 
a little distance away are wonderfully trel- 
lised vines, seeming to be climbing the white 
wall from which the gates are swung. 

In the center of each design is a Gol- 
den Rain Tree. The blossoms of the tree are 
most delicately wrought, and shining with 
gold foil against the black. These trees were, 
in especial, the work of the hammers of the 
three daughters. 

But now, to the delight of the old Japanese, 
and the delight of us all, the magnificent 
cavalcade of men and women sweeps in from 
their city parade through these ancestral 
gates, to the Camp Lincoln grounds, in order, 
yet in riot, after the manner of a great dance 
of gay and inspired horses and horsemen. 
And they are all within the command of 
Avanel, standing high in her stirrups, and 
as much beneath her eye and as subject to 
her entranced fancy, as has been St. Friend, 
the Giver of Bread, when she uttered his ser- 
mons for him, hardly knowing how she did 
it, except that she spoke her mind. 

The men on horseback are but the back- 
ground of the girls in their Diana mood. The 
huntress, and yet the Pallas Athena, seems 



272 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

roused in all these girls in white. Most of 
them are in their first strength : — high school 
girls when they are still a bit Tom boy; that 
which is with every girl for a year or half a 
lifetime as a reminiscence of the primeval 
girlhood of her far grandmothers, when they 
rode the two-toed and three-toed horse in 
equestrian dance and revel. 

High above all the other flags, on gigantic 
poles on either side of the reviewing stand, 
are the official flags of the field. The poles are 
of equal height and the flags are of identical 
size and importance in the eyes of the pa- 
raders, as they salute them and salute the 
Japanese each time round the field: — while 
the afterglow turns the air to crimson and 
orange and grey pearl. 

They go by screaming and screeching with 
delight, and sweep and cut the air with 
their Avanel blades in a sunset sword-drill. 
When they pass Avanel, whose horse is now 
near us, the salute in sign of submission to 
her pride, is given with all a girl Amazon's 
fantastic chivalry: the Boone dagger, lifted 
high overhead. In her person at least, the 
Boones of Springfield have put the Michaels 
of Springfield under their feet. And certainly 
the whitest thing in the whole whirlwind of 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 273 

white is the spirited head of old Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Second. Whatever the 
morrow between these clans, his submission 
is made as she sights him, and he bows and 
salutes in the last afterglow, and she forces 
him to lead the review beside her. 

The Japanese watches and wonders and 
says to the press gallery that of course no 
day can be women *s day and men's day 
equally, and this is one of the days of the 
women. 

Now all the while I have been wondering 
about a certain device that is the millinery 
and nonsense of this drill park, the globe 
that is the mechanical toy of these laughing 
girls. Now the whole company are whirling 
round and round that giant school-globe that 
looms like the dome of the Taj Mahal in the 
center of the field. Upon the surface of the 
sphere of hollow crystal, the map of the world 
now begins to blaze out as darkness comes on, 
the continents in the conventional colors of 
the school globes from the beginning of the 
log school house days. The interior of the 
sphere is a vapor, the color of the sea, but be- 
coming iridescent as though the world were 
but a bubble blown by the fancy of one of the 
powers of the universe. The changes of light 



274 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

are painted upon the faces of the riders and 
the flanks of the horses. 

July 17: — The Japanese is addressing the 
leaders of the Horseshoe Brotherhood and the 
Amazons. He says in conclusion: — ** Hardly 
a man on the earth wanted the war to come 
that was waged against the World Govern- 
ment thirty years ago, if we are to believe the 
professions then made. So far as I can dis- 
cover not one responsible statesman expected 
or intended it. Such djmamite may be touched 
off again, and this time it will be with more 
cause and more open anticipation. So though 
the responsible ones like Michael and my 
brother, if I may say so, are doing their best 
to prevent war, half the world is drilling and 
riding and marching, and flying about in 
practice war planes, and even here where the 
Great World's Fair of the University of 
Springfield is going on, that seems in itself an 
assurance of international brotherhood for- 
ever, you are drilling more zealously every 
day. 

"Pardon me, if for a moment I speak as 
an old man to his grandchildren. I ask to 
be forgiven if I am jealous of the furious and 
romantic years just coming on, jealous for 
the farther future, and for its vindication. 
The immediate years, I know, will fill our 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 275 

cups with sorrow whether we live or die. But 
I ask of you one Spartan thing, beyond fight- 
ing ten years — if ten years be necessary to 
subdue mad Singapore. Remember not only 
the virtues but the follies of your mothers, 
the Amazons, and your fathers, the Horse- 
shoe Brotherhood, who rode side by side and 
fought so nobly thirty years ago. I can speak 
of this because I can say without flinching 
that our Japanese men and women Samurai 
went through the same glories and follies, 
with them in the same battle line. Forever 
after, they have lived in that war on that 
battle line. Do not go on perpetually climb- 
ing into office because you can recount mili- 
tary history, as many of our Samurai have 
done, drowning out the man or woman who 
wants to speak of matters thirty years ahead 
and plan such a thing as your Fair or Univer- 
sity. No war ushers in the perfect state. The 
great wars are not all fought with the sword. 
To speak in the Christian phrase, remember 
that every yesterday is but a box of costly 
spikenard to be broken on the feet of Holy 
Tomorrow. Though you fight ten wars, let 
yesterday be your enemy. Otherwise you fight 
but as the nations that died before Confucius, 
and Mencius. ' * 

July 18: — The same group as on the 14th 



276 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

of July are around the library table of St. 
Friend with the addition of the gigantic 
Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, who is 
among us as though he were in his boyhood 
again, being as he says, "Back home, after 
so long." The idolizing friendship of the 
Japanese and his private secretary but pro- 
voke him to franker monologues and a greater 
disposition to sprawl about with his hair 
mussed up and his head on one side like an 
eagle acting the robin. He has his arm around 
his son, as though he would push him in 
amongst us. As the evening progresses, in 
reply to some quite pointed questions from 
the Japanese, on behalf of his brother and 
himself, who want to act upon the informa- 
tion, discreetly but definitely, Joseph Bar- 
tholdi Michael, the Second, bawls out a con- 
fession: — 

** First, let me say that no man ever held 
office in the world, who was actually capable 
"of running more than a village of ten thou- 
sand inhabitants. All men who have been 
higher in apparent rank than village mayors, 
have simply made shift : rattled about in their 
big chairs as they could. The courageous 
man, knowing this, respects, but does not 
fear or revere the alleged great. They all get 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 277 

the respect from me due to a good mayor, and 
no more. No man should run for a great office 
without expecting to make a botch of his ad- 
ministration. I dream of something definite 
and quite selfish. I want to have my turn as 
President of the World Government. This 
proclamation may be too much American 
style for the stomachs of my Japanese friends 
here present. But no one was ever elected dog 
catcher, coroner, governor, senator, or presi- 
dent, in this United States, who did not first 
nominate himself. As a matter of fact I know 
of no American politician who was ever urged 
to run by his most admiring friend. I must 
keep my American political habits if I am to 
feel at home in this contest and to retain even 
the American vote. All this is by the way. T 
hope it is not too mysterious to a Japanese. 

**To continue as to my views around and 
about this office. A man may serve but one 
term at best. We Michaels are a long lived 
set, and I am hoping at the end of this war 
to have strength for one term. 

It is a long journey to the nomination past 
ail other possible national or international 
ambitions; for instance, in my case, past an 
ambition to forge a thousand Michael blades. 

"I admit I am an old man, and I know the 
ironies, or at least some of them, if I win. 



278 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Whoever is President of the World or mayor 
of a small town is predestined to be over- 
thrown by the ten most envious and vigorous 
young men who want his place." 

And now the eagle begins to flame in the 
face of Michael and he speaks most earnestly : 
"I can only hope that some of the envious 
will be from Springfield's freshman chivalry. 
I love the hate of young men and young 
women when it is high and keeps them driv- 
ing forward to unseat the older generation 
in tournaments over noble issues. And who- 
ever replaces me at the World Capitol, 
either in the legislature or the supreme chair, 
I hope to have made my bungling record 
there of such a sort, my foe, equally human, 
will be obliged to do his noblest to unseat me. 
But the sword of the Michaels has not been 
called the Avanel sword by divine accident 
alone, and at the end of my turn, ten years 
hence, or so, I am willing to be driven out of 
the supreme-chair by a Boone, of Springfield, 
particularly if it is a girl, and particularly if 
she is named Avanel." Which ending is of 
course but gallant nonsense. But I venture, 
from my dark corner to interrupt severely: — 
**The world would have a princess, not a 
president. It would simply be the reiteration 
of monarchy and idolatry from of old time. ' ' 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 279 

But no one seems to hear me. My voice 
comes from too far away. 

July 21: — Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the 
Second, is talking with the two Japanese and 
myself in Tom Strong's Lunch Room, and, 
with most elaborate and knightly deference 
to the extremely contrasting race character 
of our guests, and is giving his theory of what 
he calls: — ''The New Springfield Race." And 
his tone of voice is most diplomatically in- 
gratiating, as he touches on matters alien to 
Japanese thought. 

"Just as the sea is naturally the world's 
buffer state, and in area far greater than the 
total of all the continents, with the happy 
circumstance that the World Government is 
supported by a sea revenue, in this same way 
and no other way, institutions like the Uni- 
versity Fair lie between all great enemies and 
factions of Springfield, a sea of separation, 
cooling, and reconciliation. 

"Springfield, in other ways, affords so good 
a symbol of desirable world conditions, 
toward which the World Government should 
be, perhaps, constructed, that I would like to 
put the city before you in that light. 

"What is the ultimate citizen of Spring- 
field? Already the race strains that have 
mixed, have made an elastic, resilient type, 



280 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

that is one with the city's suddenest moves. 

"Of course, one event or festival pleases 
the Italians most, another seems to be in the 
Scandanavian mood, though both events rep- 
resent Springfield. Every new song or event 
or new idea goes echoing through the various 
temperaments, and has a resonance that a 
thought cannot have when it is echoed in only 
one kind of a corridor. 

"And Springfieldians, for all their marvel- 
ous intermarriages, are not mongrel. They 
have a special Springfield sense of the sacred 
mystery of race, that keeps the great pro- 
nounced race types like the Japanese and 
others in honored separation, while within 
one general type or kindred tradition, there is 
much intermarriage. 

**We Michaelites say to each other, and you 
will forgive a family allusion, that the Spring- 
field soul, which is so elastic, is like the sword 
evolved by the Iron Gentleman, which can be 
coiled like a ribbon from the side but, when 
cutting straightforward, can go through gran- 
ite without losing edge anywhere. 

"As for the versatility and elasticity, the 
Irish grandmother of my pet enemy will keep 
him in city hall politics, and one Russian 
great-grandmother keeps him in the music 
department of the University, as one of the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 281 

leading composers. Or so we are accustomed 
to tracing out family lines in this town. 

"Another man is quite sure that his Portu- 
gese great-grandfather gives him the voice 
to be one of the city's principals in local 
opera, and his Scotch great-grandfather, at 
least in his own eyes, explains the fact that 
he is an expert accountant. 

"The mystery of race is first of all a sex 
mystery, and with endless subtleties settled 
by instinct, on which no man can dogmatize, 
though they have caused jealous Othello to 
misunderstand and kill Desdemona, and Jes- 
sica to understand and wed Lorenzo, from 
the beginning. If race is first of all a sex 
mystery, it is next a religious mystery, which 
is more easily expounded, from the standpoint 
of politics, and touches, perhaps more clearly, 
cur theory of World Government. The pray- 
ers at our family altars differ in tone and 
accent. The races with a turn for sectarian- 
ism, like the Scotch, are still working in 
our blood while others are the mainstay of 
the Cathedral. All phases of the race — 
the religious mystery, moving in harmony, 
cleanness, and self respect are not only a part 
of Springfield's total personality, but of 
Springfield 's government, in the midst of ap- 
parent mob-law. 



282 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

**For instance, the fact that the Catho- 
lics have remained for these one hundred 
years worshipping in their incense-haunted 
Churches in the Springfield atmosphere, 
means that Springfield people, married before 
Springfield Catholic altars, have become a 
special kind of dreaming Catholics. There- 
fore, they have given us miracle-working, 
vision-seeing saints, like Saint Scribe of the 
Shrines, to help unify our mood. And we all 
worship in season at the Cathedral, and half 
of us are followers of St. Friend, the Giver of 
Bread, whatever our religious belief. 

**I say the Christian Science Church of 
Springfield has a most noble history. It is 
made up largely of heretic Jews and prose- 
lytes from the old Congregational New Eng- 
landers. This would not be so if the doctrine 
were a pure abstraction appealing to all men 
equally. It is mixed in some incalculable way 
with the mystery of race and the mystery of 
the past, or it would not appeal so defi- 
nitely to these two race traditions, and so 
little to all others. 

"The side of it that appeals to me is its 
history of freedom and its chronicle of sub- 
division, which mean life, at least I hold that 
they do in this case. And so we find the local 
Mother Church growing at first strong, and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 283 

then new teachers rising in the body of the 
Church 's life to make more vital the friendly 
and hostile pulpits of the town, and stimulate 
everywhere debate. 

"The teachings of Rabbi Ezekiel of the 
Oak Religion and Mother Grey of the Flower 
Religion may be largely classified as coming 
from Christian Science. The wave of its tide 
is still strong among us, and we know not 
what Christian Science may bring forth for 
Springfield tomorrow. 

* * Our sects quarrel, of course, but whatever 
quarrels they have divide families only, never 
the city. 

**I wish this could always be true of the 
races in the "World Government. 

"We have seen adorers of the truth, like 
close followers of Mother Grey, the Florist, 
going from Synagogue to Church and from 
Church to the Open Forum, and it is generally 
deemed a mark of a good citizen, certainly 
among the descendants of the Iron Gentle- 
man, to understand all of these movements, 
and to love many, though they appear to con- 
tradict one another. Within the dominion 
'of the Springfield mind, there is a prin- 
ciple: — one sect, one vote: one race, one 
vote. As florist Mother Grey is willing to say 
to her most devoted following 'Our religions 



284 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

and races may be looked upon by the wise as 
many flowers of opposite design, yet all mak- 
ing glad the Springfield garden. ' Yet there is 
no place in the world where people are more 
loyal to their clans. Boones are Boones for- 
ever. 

"You, as a Japanese, will be glad and com- 
prehend when I say that even the religious 
life from the far east, except the teaching of 
Singapore, moves up into this common de- 
nominator in Springfield that we call citizen- 
ship. There are a few Mohammedan Philip- 
pines, and I happen to know, they are good 
citizens and good Americans, though they are 
allowed but one apparent wife in these states. 
There is a group of Thibetans, of whom the 
Thibetan Boy is one socially, if not relig- 
iously, who do not find a contradiction be- 
tween their Springfield patriotism that has 
gone on these three generations, and their 
reformed Buddhism. Of course, they marry 
for the most part among themselves, or bring 
Thibetans from New York or San Francisco 
to build up their colony. Whatever church a 
group of our people finds in tune with their 
race and sex and love-tradition, no matter 
how separate they keep their race strains, or 
how guarded their family altars and holy fam- 
ily flags, they surely belong to the Spring- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 285 

field race and the Springfield Civic Religion. 
They are loyal to the city as a scholar is to 
his University. This is the mood I would like 
to get into World-Government-Flag-Patriot- 
ism, which is now too crude. With obvious 
Singaporian exceptions, this Springfield civic 
religon is preached by every philosopher and 
every local atheist. Even Sparrow Short, 
though he seems to hate me and the World 
Government, would count it as great a hard- 
ship to be banished from Springfield, as 
Dante counted it, to be banished from Flor- 
ence. I wish his kind could see the World 
Flag as they see the Springfield Flag. 

**You have wanted to understand my poli- 
tics, to make it clearer to your brother in 
Japan. In most things the city is a symbol 
and pattern to me of World Unity and World 
Government and if there has been any con- 
sistency in my battles in the World Senate, 
it is because I had faith in this pattern. 

"Within the range from Jew to Greek we 
openly trust one another's priesthood, realiz- 
ing we are all kings and priests before God. 
Above all races and their sects are the stars, 
and beneath them is the rich earth, and be- 
tween these our city climbs heavenward. I am 
sure that before a thousand years go by, yes, 
before a hundred years go by, some image of 



286 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Prince Siddartha will stand beside the image 
of Johnny Appleseed, whose soul was so much 
like his own. Our image of Johnny Appleseed 
would have been equally impossible in the 
church of St. Peter and St. Paul that stood on 
the site of our cathedral one hundred years 
ago. With such practical unity of the main 
forces that have quarrelled immemorially in 
the old lands, I have the hope that similar 
forces of race and sect, with the buffer state 
of the ocean between them, to keep them cool, 
may come to practical reconciliation under 
the World Flag: — that those that can unite 
under the Flag of Springfield with joy, can 
some day unite, the world over, under the flag 
of all mankind. ' ' And so, till midnight Joseph 
Bartholdi Michael, the Second, talks on and 
'on, possibly recruiting a member of his pos- 
sible cabinet, if his dream comes true, of be- 
ing for one term the President of the World. 
And the Japanese Samurai nods his gray head 
keeping time to the eloquence, till the one 
remaining waiter gets us out of the restau- 
rant by turning down the lights, and handing 
us our hats. 



CHAPTER XVn 

HOW IN THE LATTER PART OF JULY BLACK HAWK 
BOONE IS OPENLY LYNCHED AND JAMES KOPENSKY 
MYSTERIOUSLY STABBED ON THE SAME EVENING. 
HOW THREE MONTHS LATER THERE IS NO 
SIGN THAT EITHER MURDER WILL BE PUN- 
ISHED. HOW THE GOLDEN BOOK APPEARS 
ON THE MYSTIC DAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 AND 
HOW, WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO THE 
MOURNING AVANEL, SHE TAKES COUR- 
AGE AND LEADS HER PEOPLE AGAINST 
SINGAPORE, THAT WICKED NATION, 
THAT HAS DECLARED WAR ON THE 
WORLD FLAG. 

July 22, 2018 : — This morning owing to new 
utterances on the part of Sparrow Short and 
two others, more venomous than himself, 
brothers of *'Beau Nash," he and they are 
put into the International Prison for world 
treason, with all further bail and bond re- 
fused. Therefore tonight there is a great 
torch-parade and ritual by St. Friend and 
his followers in the cathedral. Debs, John 
Brown, Lovejoy, Liebknecht, are invoked. 
Springfield's fury, glory, and devotion are in 
every face and eye. St. Friend, with unaccus- 

287 



288 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

tomed fire for these his days of feebler health, 
reviles the opinions of Short and his com- 
panions. But he demands their liberation in 
the name of the Constitution of the United 
States and Free Speech. St. Friend cries from 
the pulpit: ''We preach not the low revolu- 
tion, but the high revolution, not the massacre 
in the street, but the high unquenched torch 
of freedom and free speech in the unconsumed 
cathedral." 

The smoke of those torches comes between 
me and St. Friend. Everything on this day 
happens to me in such a fashion. There is 
much dust on the dustless streets, at least 
when I pass by. And many streets are unac- 
countably deserted, morning and afternoon, 
though there is a World's Fair crowd roar-^ 
ing somewhere near, I know. And the dust 
that sweeps up with the autumn leaves from 
these streets has the taste of old years in it, 
and the grave. It seems, some moments, as 
though I can keep my eyes open no longer. I 
am not to take one step further. Some fate has 
forbidden me to glimpse more of my City. But 
there is that in my will and my soul that com- 
mands me to go forward one step further, 
and open my eyes for one moment longer. 

And so through this evening I realize that, 
dimly and dizzily, the torches are being up- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 289 

lifted at the beginning of the star chiming 
hour. 

Now the great Joseph Bartholdi Michael, 
the Second, is himself speaking in the cathe- 
dral, and, if he testifies for old Sparrow 
Short, who shall say that Short is a danger 
to the World Flag? 

Michael says that Just as freedom resides 
in the Declaration of Independence, in trial 
by jury, and the like, which are immemorial, 
crystallized institutions of the radicalism of 
ancient times, so radicals with new thoughts 
should have every chance with their torch 
in the church and not be forced to wave it in 
the street, and that "he is indeed glad this 
ineeting is being held in this place, etc., etc. ' ^ 

July 23: — Sparrow Short is left locked up 
and forgotten, for to-day there is a great 
war-music in the streets. 

All Singapore is running amuck. The 
Horseshoe Brotherhood and the Amazons are 
drilling double hours. Joseph Bartholdi Mi- 
chael, the Second, is firing his clan like an 
Arab Mahdi, preaching a new holy war. A 
new group of trumpeters are to the fore, blow- 
ing slender trumpets, all of them silver white, 
to frighten the Lord of Cocaine, trumpets 
whose cry is that of birds that the Singa- 



290 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

porians hold accursed; the eagle, the turkey 
and the wild swan. 

And to that music, there at Camp Lincoln, 
the malestrom of cavalry goes on, round and 
round their gigantic mechanical toy, their 
simple childlike image of the earth, and its 
glow is turning to a glare as of a smelter- 
furnace door, or the blaze of a little planet, 
newly whirled off from the sun. 

July 24: — War talk dies down and the 
whole town is full of hatred of its leaders and 
feverish silly rumors against them. More and 
more openly the small fry politicians of all 
factions seem to be justifying with reminis- 
cent emphasis the lynching of Surto Hurden- 
burg as an heroic act of defiance of both the 
City Hall and the Board of Education. The 
actual responsibility for the lynching is 
shifted from this one to that one, but, whoever 
it was that led (if we are to believe the tone 
of the coffee houses) is a hero. 

The fairly well-meaning leaders of the 
town, comprising the majority of both the 
Board of Education and the City Hall, are 
in new tremendous offices, administering the 
growing responsibilities of the "World's Fair 
and the war preparations also, and a gulf has 
been made between them and the people with 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 291 

whom they have been on gossiping terms here- 
tofore. 

The old war between the town and the gown 
seems revived, with this difference, that the 
natives of Springfield act like the University 
students, and the finest World's Fair visit- 
ors seem the real citizens of the place, in- 
sulted at the deeds of the freshmen. The 
habit of turning every spare village green 
into a summer camp ground for passing tour- 
ists in automobiles, that has prevailed through 
the United States for a long time, has estab- 
lished in all the counties adjoining Spring- 
field an enormous circle of village grounds, 
and here the great part of the Fair visitors 
camp by their own machines and come in to 
the show by day, by local transportation of 
all sorts. Their resentment of the frivolity of 
the rank and file of the city grows, and 
nightly they are the more appalled at the 
rumor as they chatter in their camps, that 
the Springfield mob intends to lynch whole- 
sale the only people who have treated the 
Fair visitors with any degree of courtesy, 
namely: — the City Council and the Board of 
Education. 

Whole streets of the city are suddenly de- 
serted and the business houses closed, for this 
or that lightly given reason, and the next 



292 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

hour that street, under obscure leaders may 
be filled with a howling mob, that seems to be 
howling about nothing. 

The slander still persists, with infinite vari- 
ations, that the man who poisoned Drug Store 
Smith and Coffee House Kusuko did it at 
the direct instigation of old Boone. Such an 
action is indeed far from Boone 's nature. And 
this, all discredited leaders, in a panic for 
their personal safety, steadily maintain, 

July 25: — I am again the Malay servant at 
the house of the Man from Singapore. 

The death of Drug Store Smith and Coffee 
House Kusuko was exacted of the Mayor's 
son by Montague Rock. It was an earnest of 
the sincerity of his conversion to the Singa- 
porian cult. The Man from Singapore had 
nothing to do with it and, in fact, does not 
approve of the use of such a drastic initiation, 
**But who can control these zealous prose- 
lytes, these foreigners ? " he says. The slander- 
ing of Boone, it appears, by the talk of the 
Man from Singapore with his daughter, is 
also the work of this fanatical convert, 
Montague Rock. It is not exactly the Singa- 
porian way. But again **who can control 
these foreigners ? ' ' 

July 26: — About the beginning of July, 
four men come to town, who took part in 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 293 

the burning alive of a negro in Chicago. 
The burning was provoked by a yellow jour- 
nal's account, giving hear-say evidence 
against the negro. Disturbing their minds not 
at all over the subsequent vindication of the 
black man, his executioners come to Spring- 
field, intoxicated with their recent leadership, 
the first taste of public power they have ever 
known, the smell of burning flesh delighting 
their cannibal nostrils. They take odd jobs 
from Boone and profess to be his violent 
partizans. They are more violent than he 
desires or uses. 

And so tonight, while I am chained in the 
body of the Malay body-servant, the news 
comes over the phone, particularly grieving 
the Man from Singapore, that Boone has been 
hanged from the same tree at the northwest 
corner of the State House ground, where 
Surto Hurdenburg was hanged on the twen- 
tieth of June. The four men from Chicago, 
who lead the mob, want to burn Boone to 
death, but the rest of the crowd insist on a 
hanging. The crowd is not composed of parti- 
zans of the City Hall. There are few people 
who were at the murder of Hurdenburg; ac- 
cording to the report over the phone, equally 
obscure members of all factions are repre- 
sented. 



294 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

The Man from Singapore says he deeply 
regrets the death of Boone who was an honor- 
able and open foe of Singapore. He almost 
weeps before the beautiful Mara and, as to 
what she thinks, I know not. He says that if 
he had had his way, Boone should have lived 
several years longer, but the fashions, even 
of proselytes in Springfield, are past finding 
out. ''They are WHITE people, you know,'* 
he says to Mara, ' ' even if they are converted. ' * 

Then he is gone to his writing room in the 
white tower of his house, and Mara sits wait- 
ing for Crawling Jim, who is due later this 
evening. 

And here let it be recorded that, the Singa- 
porian issue becoming more bitter, the towers 
of Springfield and all the principal cities of 
the United States have been painted white 
this last month, to drive out the more fan- 
atical Singaporians. In complete harmony 
with this hysterical and fantastic and humor- 
ous procedure. Crawling Jim has been under 
the necessity of wearing a small white plume 
in his hat, or resigning his place as President 
of the Robin Redbreast Flying Club. Noth- 
ing is said among the members. Plumes begin 
to appear one at a time. Soon a majority have 
them. Jim put on his plume late yesterday. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 295 

He values his supremacy in that flying club 
more than any victory in love or any dogma 
of religion. 

But having had a part in the Judas tricks 
which have ended in the hanging of Boone, 
he knocks most confidently on the door to- 
night, when it is almost midnight, and I let 
him in. He carries in his hand the hat with 
the white plume. 

He walks into the book-room most jauntily. 
There the deep eyed Mara awaits him with 
love. She is nestled among her books, just 
below her mother's languid picture. She 
lifts slow eyes that are heavy with love. But 
she sees that white plume. And Jim has little 
time left in life to have the Malay nature ex- 
plained to him, the brief tale of how they may 
run ''amuck" without reason. 

Mara cannot wait. Her dagger is out, and 
she is indeed running * ' amuck. ' ' They reach 
the hall together, and she stabs him before 
the eyes of the green Glass Buddha. She 
stands stark and lonely above him, and 
screams for her father to come down from 
his writing room. 

October 29: — The body of Crawling Jim 
was found in a shadow, near the tree where 



296 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Boone was hanged, by the group of young 
Boones who came to take away the body of 
their kinsman. 

No one is in serious peril of being brought 
to justice for the death of Boone, though 
that was three months and three days ago. 
This has always been the case, in Springfield 
lynchings and murders. It is a thing still 
taken for granted, as people look drearily in 
the direction of the courts. The weekly mag- 
azines in Coe 's Book Store, from all over the 
country, roar about the two unavenged and 
unspeakable Springfield murders: — of the 
leading editor, and the son of the mayor on 
the same night. This has been in the papers, 
on similar occasions, for a century. And curi- 
ously enough, the town is blazing with inter- 
national courage and all tense with efficiency 
on international issues. We are more in de- 
spair of bringing some sixty or one hundred 
masked murderers to justice than of anni- 
hilating the whole nation and religion of 
Singapore on the other side of the world. And 
there is, I admit, some justification for our 
hope. America, paralyzed one minute, is like 
a million bolts of lightning the next. There 
is something of the essence of majority rule 
in this, if one might think it out. But to our 
story. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 297 

Singapore ia about to proclaim ar all- Asia 
tic alliance against the World Government, 
with the ostensible object of an ultimate Pa- 
cific Ocean Government, living in alleged 
reciprocity and amity with the World Govern- 
ment, but not under one jurisdiction. Their 
newspaper editorials, sent by cable, sound 
marvelously like the fulminations of South 
Carolina in the days of Andrew Jackson, and 
further fulminations in the days just before 
the Civil War. 

Indo China joins the Singaporian league, 
Burmah, and certain provinces of Southern 
China. But most of the Asiatic continent and 
all of Japan remains actively loyal to the 
Flag of Joseph's Coat. On the other hand 
there are strange hesitancies in Europe and 
South America. There are rumors of World 
Treason, even among American officials of the 
World Government. Today the Singaporian 
declaration hangs. 

I find myself again with the Japanese and 
his secretary on the reviewing stand by 
the wrought iron gates of Camp Lincoln, as 
the Amazons once more whirl by. They are 
valiant and potent as Britomart, and the Jap- 
anese Samurai says *4t is inconceivable that 
such creatures could let a mob run away with 
their town, if such things had not happened 



298 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

hundreds of times in the history of noble 
cities. ' ' 

I find a wan new hope pouring into my 
dusty veins as they pass us many thousand 
strong, riding the best bred, the best shod 
horses in the whole wide world, and flashing 
the finest swords ever made. And along with 
the swords, the eyes of the horses flash as 
though they themselves were shouting the 
song of the warrior maidens. It is the old 
song, sung now with terrible irony and 
sweetness: ''Springfield Awake, Springfield 
Aflame." And then there are strains of that 
World Government song, beginning: ** Every 
ship of every land, every wheel and every 
wing." 

The cheeks of the girls are sun-browned, 
and rosy as the Amaranth- Apples in the orch- 
ards of Hunter Kelly. 

The whole town is here; every faction, 
religion, tribe and tongue. Besides all the 
Michaels, Boones and Darsies, Bonansingas, 
Romanoffs, Fagins, Kopenskys, Rocks, Rues, 
Swartzes, McGinnisses, Ezekiels, Greys, there 
are even girls of the negro Timmons and Emis 
families. There are Hymans, Stanleys and 
Radleys, and all the rest. Each steed is like a 
pale horse of death. I am thinking that when 
human beings go forward like this, trained to 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 299 

the last inch, all whipcord and tempered steel, 
it is no wonder that, left far behind, to make 
mischief, there are human embers. This must 
be paid for, by the discarded creatures among 
us who cannot stand this pace and who are not 
quite vile enough in ordinary hours to be hid 
in jails or sanitariums, but who when their 
little time suddenly arrives, go forth maraud- 
ing according to their nature and their good 
luck. 

I am beneath the reviewing platform and, 
as I am meditating, the mayor's little sister 
stands up in her stirrups and cuts me across 
the face with her whip, not checking her pace 
an instant. Some one behind and above me 
says: *' Evidently you did not see the flags.'' 
It is the Japanese, all courtesy and solicitude. 
But he has been fortunate enough to see in 
time and to salute the meteors just ahead of 
this fiery little rider, the two battle flags of 
the Amazons, the Star Spangled Banner and 
the thousand-colored flag that will yet redeem 
mankind, made of all the flags in the world, 
sewed into one glorious banner, the Flag of 
Joseph's Coat. 

But I have my excuse for not seeing the 
flags of my world. My eyes have been dazzled 
by Avanel, who has been mourning and hid- 
den three months and three daysj she is rid- 



/ 
300 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

ing in from a boulevard to the left, hurrying 
with her escort to the head of the cavalcade. 

The meaning of her accoutrement is plain. 
She is saying, by what she wears : * ' No Singa- 
pore intrigue can drive the child of Daniel 
Boone from her destiny. ' ' Never was she such 
a commander as she is in this twilight, with 
black horse, black gauntlets, black dress, 
black harness, black plume, all things black 
and the only flash of white, her mourning 
face. Her pride is laid low for a higher pride. 
For the first time her black hair is combed 
back over her shoulders, after the manner and 
regulation of the Boones, and she goes for- 
ward to resume her command, and the girls 
cry out in passionate welcome, and there is a 
terrible mourning and a terrible menace in 
their cry, when she takes her left hand from 
the gauntlet, and it is dyed crimson, after the 
manner and regulation of the Boones. 

October 30. — The Amazons of the city, and 
the Horseshoe Brotherhood have taken pos- 
session of the city, and until the day of their 
going, they will police the city and none shall 
hinder them, and they ride down the boule- 
vards with little consideration or patience 
for the loitering of passers by. More and more 
the Avanel blades hiss in the air, and there is 
angry fear in the eyes of the women, that the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 301 

mobs may again own these streets, while the 
city's warriors are away in Asia. And this 
evening The Boone Ax, of which Avanel is 
now the nominal editor, comes out with an 
editorial, front page, with her signature: — ''I 
have railed in my time at middle-class respect- 
ability. Yet The Boone Ax trusts it today as 
the one jewel case containing most of the 
gems of brotherhood. Whatever its policy in 
the past The Boone Ax now puts at the head 
of its regular inside editorial page a picture 
of Confucius, and under it this description : — 
'The champion of old-fashioned, middle-class 
decency and respectability, and the lawgiver 
for this paper. ' 

* * The picture goes there as our only venge- 
ance for the death of the founder of this 
paper, and as our eternal reminder of that 
act. 

''As a matter of getting down to the bed 
rock of civilization we turn to the world's 
most ancient champion of propriety and civil- 
ity and fight lynch law and all popular and 
ill-considered whirlwinds, until our paper has 
won its battle, or is wiped from the face of 
the earth." 

November 1, 2018: — But Confucius is not 
the patron saint of the lady Avanel. 

It all comes as a clouded vision before me 



302 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

as though I were half in the vision, and 
through it beginning a new and more desper- 
ate destiny of my own. It is the snowy morn- 
ing of All Saints ' Day. Representatives of the 
Michael Clan, young and old. Horseshoe 
Brotherhood, Amazons and many others are 
at the crossing of Fifth Street and Capital 
Avenue, by the ancestral Blacksmith Shop. 
The horse of the conquering Avanel Boone is 
to be shod by that good sport, Joseph Bar- 
tholdi Michael, the Second, as a sign of fealty, 
and in final preparation for the going forth 
against Singapore. Scattered among the 
Michaels are the long-haired, black-haired 
Boones, with the locks of both the men and 
women streaming back over their shoulders, 
after the manner and regulation of the 
Boones, and their left hands dyed crimson, as 
a perpetual reminder to themselves and all 
the world of certain strains of Red Indian 
ancestry. 

While the snow is blowing into the shop, 
white-haired Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the 
Second, aided by his son, the Third have 
taken the old shoes from the dainty feet 
of the white pony, and just as the old war- 
rior is lifting a new shoe from the fire, the 
flames leap up, there is a music incredibly 
sweet and, with a great whirring of wings 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 303 

and terrible thunder, the Golden Book flies 
out of the fire and circles above these two 
clans and their satelites of renown. 

And the swords of the Amazons are out in 
the air in involuntary salutation, and the face 
of Avanel has the consecration of a nun, tak- 
ing her final vows. I wonder if all her girlish 
escort, so wonderstricken, see, as I see. For 
to me, as I feel my feet sinking into the dust of 
the ancient grave, this horse and rider move 
heavenward a little, it seems as though 
Avanel 's horse's hoofs no longer quite touch 
the ground; she is a sort of celestial lady 
centaur. She and her horse have one pair of 
wings that bind them together, and the wings 
are rays of light and the same color as the 
wings of the book and akin. And even while 
I look, the very glory of this vision of a young 
girl, receiving her commission from the un- 
seen world, burns me down like the last 
embers of a campfire blown upon by a ter- 
rible wind from the skies. I am neither man 
nor weed nor flame any more but something 
less than these and doomed by the years. 
There is a flower of flame above her forehead 
that consumes my eyes; there are flowers of 
flame above the foreheads of all her girl com- 
panions. 

Avanel, with eyes fixed and strained, fol- 



304 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

lows the flying book on her winged horse. The 
book settles into her arms and, though the 
snow and autumn leaves swirl down and 
blind me, I see her there above the company, 
like a fairy in a trance, while the assembled 
clans and all the citizens gather close to hear 
every word. The first pages of the volume 
give a new constitution for the World Govern- 
ment, based on the teachings of Abraham Lin- 
coln. The song in the air praises Avanel and 
urges her and all she commands to valor for 
the Heavenly Star Spangled Banner and the 
Heavenly International Flag. 

But as for myself, I am sinking to my knees 
into yesterday, and this is not Fifth and Capi- 
tal Avenue, for me, for the wind says : ' * ashes 
to ashes dust to dust." Then Avanel leans 
down. She gives her crimson hand to me one 
moment. She gives me life for this war. This 
is the day of going forth against Singapore. 



CHAPTER XVin 

HOW SEVEN TEARS AFTER THE MYSTIC TEAR ST 
FRIEND AND AVANEL, READ FROM A COPT OF THE 
GOLDEN BOOK AND HOW HE TELLS HIS VISION 
THAT CAME THE DAT THE BOOK FIRST .AP- 
PEARED. ON OTHER DATS THE LADT AVANEL 
SOWS THE THISTLE OF DREAMS AND THE 
APPLE AMARANTH SEEDS AND THE .ACORNS 
OF EZEKIEL AND THE SEEDS OF THE 
GOLDEN RAIN TREE AND THEREBT COME 
NEW VISIONS AND TEACHINGS AND 
MAGIC WORKS. 

Of the Singapore adventure, there is a song 
to be sung, some day, but we cannot, by tak- 
ing thought, sing of battles. The song of 
battle comes when we least expect it, long 
after or long before the event that is so mov- 
ing to the heart. 

But Singapore is indeed overthrown and 
for two seasons the young men and maidens 
have been back from the Asiatic war front. 
To some of them, to many. The Golden Book 
came before they left Springfield. To others 
it appeared after the last battle, hovering 
above the trenches at midnight and there 
were songs in the air calling them home. Or 

806 



306 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

they found it suddenly in their hands in camp 
shelters, and long litanies and proclamations 
of the New Springfield and the New Earth 
flashed upon their souls and burned eternal 
record there. 

It is a gorgeous first of March afternoon 
and the wind has abated for a few hours, and 
a few buds are out in Washington Park and 
we are hoping that frost will not nip them in 
this exceedingly premature spring. The lotus 
pond is still empty and leaden. It flowers only 
in the height of July but we look to it in 
hope and with remembrance of other lotus 
days. 

Avanel and I and St. Friend are in the 
Washington Park Pavilion. The precocious 
spring is in the blood of the ancient saint. He 
is the youngest of us, the gayest. Avanel is 
speaking of that morning in front of the 
blacksmith shop when the great Book flut- 
tered into her arms. "In the fire flaming from 
the words of that book, I found power to go 
out and fight for the International Flag, and 
make that the vengeance for the death of my 
father.'' 

Now I draw from my coat pocket a tiny 
duplicate of the book, such as is now in the 
hands of practically every Springfield citi- 
zen, printed by Josephine Windom and Hor- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 307 

ace Andrews. As we three loaf in the pavil- 
ion: St. Friend, Avanel and myself, and look 
at the leaden lotus pond, St. Friend reads 
aloud the familiar opening sentences of St. 
Scribe of the Shrines, who wrote the book 
in Heaven: — 

**I have been long in the jungles of the 
Celestial Zion, speculating on how the ruined 
mansions here, and how the earth itself, might 
be rebuilt. Yet the true Heaven lies in a 
single flower, and more and more my specula- 
tions turn on how my own city, Springfield 
may be rebuilt. ' ' 

Then St. Friend the Giver of Bread, at our 
urging, reads on and on. The volume tells, 
for instance, how Heaven became a jungle 
within the lifetime of an ordinary man. The 
book contains a sermon, which our saint reads 
to us, on: ''Your great great grandson's 
neighbor 's. " It is a volume no more consecu- 
tive than the Koran. Each dream is written 
down once for all as it came to the tranced 
soul of St. Scribe, as he bent over the page, 
with his terrible pen in his hand. 

With endless reiteration the book de- 
nounces the diabolical works of the Singa- 
porian sect and their conspiring against 
world peace. It pronounces a blessing on the 
predestined victorious armies of the World 



308' THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Government and prophecies the triumph of 
their splendid flag. 

Moreover, St. Friend reads, not only many 
of these things, but the sermon on "The 
Ehythm of the Heart, ' ' and the homily upon 
''The Good and Evil of Beauty." He reads 
the exhortation for ''The Young Musician 
who has not learned to Pray," and the one 
for "The Young Politician who has not 
learned to Pray," and like discourses for 
many other occupations. 

And then Avanel and I take turns reading 
on and on to him through the specific direc- 
tions for the founding of the schools of the 
Young Prophets, and the discourse on the 
horror of the angels at all the World Wars, 
and the tale of how the angels went out to re- 
deem the stars from war by surrendering 
themselves to crucifixion on millions of 
crosses on millions of suns and stars and 
planets, and thus within the lifetime of the 
generation now on earth. Heaven was left a 
jungle. This is followed by an exhortation 
to make Springfield a city "worthy of the 
blood of the crucified poured down upon it.'* 

But its powers are not directly in its inter- 
minable discourses. Always it seems to be a 
person, not a book, and so, on this afternoon. 



THE GOLDEN LOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 309 

April 10, 2025 : — Again it is a goodly after- 
noon, and we are still hopeful for these pre- 
cocious buds. As we sit in the sun in the 
Washington Park Pavilion, Saint Friend, the 
Giver of Bread, tells us of the visions that 
came seven years ago. 

**I remember the Halloween of 2018, and 
the next few days, as no other period in my 
life. I was in the Cathedral all the night, 
praying before the Image of St. Scribe of the 
Shrines. And toward morning it took on the 
appearance of breathing human flesh, but was 
Hunter Kelly of long ago, in the hunter's cap 
and deerskin dress, such as he wore when he 
came to Illinois two centuries ago. 

And so Hunter Kelly, St. Scribe of the 
Shrines, made me forget all else, telling me 
stories of the tomorrow of Illinois and giving 
clear prophecies of the tomorrow of the Cathe- 
dral, in the city and the nation and the world. 
He spoke of saints of the pattern of Abraham 
Lincoln, and Johnny Appleseed, foreordained 
to live and breathe beneath our Cathedral 
roof, before the ever living presence on the 
altar. Then he gave me the joy of confession, 
and seemed to be St. Scribe, the master of my 
youth. Then all was darkness and sleep. 

**In the early morning I woke from my 



310 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

trance and found myself lying on the floor of 
the Cathedral. The Image of Hunter Kelly- 
St. Scribe, was gone from the niche. 

"In the late morning, when I'found myself 
reading his Golden Book to the people it 
seemed as though I had known its every word 
for infinite years. 

''I read on and on. When I closed the book 
and dismissed the people, they went out sing- 
ing through the streets 'Springfield Awake, 
Springfield Aflame.^ 

''As I stood alone in the church, a vision cf 
the war came to me. 

"The angel of the Cathedral came down 
from the carved niche near the roof. By many 
signs she was, indeed, the angel of Illinois. 
The stone was transformed into a presence, 
delicate as the milkweed silk, ruddy as the 
sunrise. Her hair was the hue of red corn. 
Her wind blown mantle was the color of ripe 
wheat. Her wings were l^ke those of the white 
eagle. Her eyes were dark as the deep-digged 
mine. Her smile was the beginning of visions. 

"Circling her temple was an opalescent 
crown, twenty white stars, with the twenty 
first over the forehead, with the red blood of 
Hunter Kelly in the heart 's core of it. 

"Above her head appeared a great band, 
swinging a censer through the roof and 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 311 

walls of the building. The Angel of the Cathe- 
dral said to me, as she stood beside me: — 
'This is the Censer of Change. A great 
change is coming to Illinois and the Capital 
of Illinois. ' 

"The smoke poured out and filled the 
streets. It penetrated every grove of Spring- 
field. It beat in the blood of every living crea- 
ture. 

"The Angel of Illinois said: — 'This is the 
Incense of Civic Genius. The city shall be 
barren no longer but bring forth. ' 

"Then through the roof, as though there 
were a censer higher than the first, clouds of 
many colors descended. These became gor- 
geous cloud-winged children in wonderful, 
gleaming silks, flying through the walls. And 
in the same stream Gothic grotesques walked 
and crawled down the aisles and out into the 
streets, all singing: 'Springfield Awake, 
Springfield Aflame. ' 

"The angel of the Cathedral said: 'These 
are the children of the New Time and their 
playmates, the beasts of Innocent Fancy. ' 

"Then the dusty stone cherubim and sera- 
phim that stood by the pillars of the church, 
with their dusty cold trumpets, took on life. 
They blew a long awakening cry. Every note 
was a delicate and heart-shaking surprise. 



312 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

Then from above the high altar, from a fire 
which burned round the Host on the altar, 
there came soldiers of Heaven, in very ancient 
armor, but with newly pierced hands. 

''The Angel of the Cathedral, the Angel 
of Hlinois, said: 'These are they who shall 
live invisibly by every hearth and table 
throughout the Capital.' 

"There burst from the pavement smoke 
and dust and stones, and from there arose 
the great glass image of the cocaine Buddha. 
Immobile as any other stone, he was yet 
carried by invisible hands. He and his 
company rushed with a great whistling 
like the hissing of serpents. They went out 
through the walls into the streets as though 
the walls were nothing. They had many kinds 
of monsters with them, and strangely singing 
birds of paradise, and lions with poison quills. 

"The Angel of Illinois said to me: *This 
glass image will turn to dust. Yet for every 
angel at a hearth of the city there will be a 
demon, a quilled lion, and a singing bird of 
paradise. These will eat invisibly at your 
tables and hearths, feeding upon the words 
and thoughts of the household. They will 
breathe hell's breath into the faces of the 
children. Bmt the Angel Soldiers of Heaven 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 313 

who have marched from out the High Altar 
will be with the people also. 

** These powers will be in perpetual truce 
and perpetual war in every house in the Cap- 
ital. But open war between nations and races 
of men will soon be ended forever. 

''These lioms have crept and ramped 
through the dark valleys of Heaven and they 
have the seeds of sweet flowers clinging to 
their feet and these singing birds of paradise 
have flown through the dark trees of heaven, 
and have the seeds of rare trees clinging to 
their pinions. 

"These censers that have swung over the 
raw capital, will swing over many another 
this day, and the angel soldiers will appear in 
many another city around the world, and by 
many a far off hearthstone and family and 
tribal table, with their demon foes beside 
them, in perpetual truce, and perpetual war. * * 

May 15: — The premature, precocious buds 
and green twigs of the year are surviving this 
perilous spring. There are showers and car- 
pets of every kind of blossom. It seems more 
like June fifteenth than May fifteenth. Beau- 
tiful people, mothers and children, boys and 
girls, in the lightest and whitest of summer 
masquerading costumes are walking and 
dancing over the whitest, cleanest streets our 



814 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

city has ever known. But the Lady Avanel 
and I confess to one another, as of old, that 
these days are not the millennium, however 
gay they seem to be. 

And yet my lady, this evening, becomes a 
thing not quite of this earth, a spirit, yet a 
sower in earthly fields. 

I whisper: ''Lady Avanel, Miss Fantas- 
tic, while the star chimes are ringing another 
new tune, what are you sowing from your 
close-woven willow basket so full of seed? 
The lady speaks with the voice of the wind: — 
"I am sowing the torturing thistle of dreams. 
Some men do not see this city as it is, because 
they have walked in easy and stupid ways. 
They have never walked, as we do this even- 
ing, while the Thistle of Dreams comes up. We 
see it springing from the ground in an instant. 
It will go in an hour. But if we touch it we 
are blessed and tormented forever by newer 
and newer dreams. And at last our eyes will 
see this city as it is, a weed patch indeed, but 
of fancies. And more than a weed patch of 
fancies, — a forest, but of gigantic dreams. 

**The men who can see the dreams build 
the patterns into visible forms, and then we 
have the Sunset Towers, and the Truth 
Tower, and the Street of Past History, and 
the rest. 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 316 

**Then I walk past these buildings and sow 
new thistle-down and thistles, and they 
penetrate the very concrete of the sidewalk, 
splitting it for their roots. Then younger men 
and women are stung with new visions, that 
make the Sunset Towers seem commonplace, 
and all but the Springfield Flag, the Star 
Spangled Banner, and the World Flag, dim 
things. ' ' 

The Thistle of Dreams is growing around 
Avanel as she speaks. It looks like a gigantic 
fleur de lis, but from it comes endless silk as 
though from the pods of the milkweed. She 
says of that silk : ' ' It is full of thorns sharper 
than Cupid 's arrows, more transforming than 
any drug from Asia. They work their way to 
many a heart and brain. When the young citi- 
zens are tormented by these they will build 
things greater than Springfield has yet looked 
upon, people's palaces, as yet without a 
name. ' ' 

''And who are you. Lady Avanel, and by 
what authority do you speak ? ' ' 

"I am only the breath of the prairie, I am 
only the West-going Heart, and by that 
authority I speak to you, and by that author- 
ity I sow the thistle. ' ' 

"Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, while the 
star chimes are ringing another new tune, 



316 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

what are you sowing from your close woven 
willow basket, so full of seed ? ' ' 

*'I am sowing the appleseeds of Johnny 
Appleseed and Hunter Kelly and the Acorns 
of Rabbi Terence Ezekiel and the seeds of 
the Golden Rain Tree of New Harmony. But 
they are now breathed on by the winds of 
chaos and their glory comes suddenly. ' ' 

At once in her path appear saplings, then 
they become full grown trees. And there are 
many earthquakes, as the boughs begin, this 
very midnight, to bear flowers and fruit. 
Then come up from the roots explosive 
scraps of earth and volcano coals. Treasure 
sacks of strange jewels, neither scorched nor 
smoked, are tossed to the surface of the 
ground. These sacks are full of coins of 
celestial gold, stamped with a picture of 
Hunter Kelly, as though he were a Presi- 
dent or an Emperor of some strange dominion. 

From each heap of celestial gold come two 
or three bright spirits with wreaths of tiny 
leaves or flowers round their baby foreheads, 
weeping angels, an hour old, little boys, most 
sturdy and kicking. 

And now angels will come to bear them to 
the houses of the laughing people. Citizens 
who are not at home will find them later 
on the table, and in the wood box and in the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 317 

waste-basket, strange little visitors and 
sons. 

''Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, what of 
these children from the sod ? ' ' 

The lady answers : * * These are the laughter 
of earth and heaven. 

"These children will grow in stature and 
beauty for twenty years. And then these little 
sons of God will see the daughters of men, 
that they are fair, as it was in the book of 
Genesis, at the very beginning of time. The 
next generation of men in Springfield, born of 
the loves of these angels and daughters of the 
city, will be giants like Nimrod. These giants 
will drive out the former institutions with 
their own swords, forged for this special 
war. That generation will build many man- 
sions of divine beauty, sheltering men and 
near-angels alike. And the houses of magical 
or heavenly aspect will mix with the plain, 
grimy or earthen houses: — for the genera- 
tions of Springfield will be forever a mixed 
breed.** 



CHAPTER XIX 

HOW AT THB END OP ALL THESE WORKS AND DATS, 

AVANBL AND I RISE IN A BOAT THROUGH THE 

AIR, FOLLOWING THE GREAT NEW AMARANTH 

VINE FROM CAMP LINCOLN TO THE PARAPETS OF 

HEAVEN. HOW WE TRACE ITS BANYAN-LIKE 

BRANCHES THROUGH THE JUNGLES OF 

HEAVEN, AND HOW WE DEFT THE HANDSOME 

MEDICINE MAN, DEVIL'S GOLD. AND HOW, 

LATER. WE FIND THE EMPTY SACK OF 

JOHNNY APPLESEED. HOW I RETURN 

TO FIFTH AND MONROE AND AVANEL 

IS ONE HUNDRED TEARS AWAT. 

It is many years after the triumphant re- 
turn of the Amazons and the Horseshoe 
Brotherhood from the battles in Asia. Avanel 
and I are walking again along the Great 
Northwest Road, and we reach the Old Camp 
Lincoln grounds where the Horseshoe Broth- 
erhood and the Amazons so often drill. But 
this evening it is deserted, with neither tent 
nor horse nor rider to be seen. It is autumn 
and leaves whirl between me and the Lady 
Avanel and too often hide her from me. Many 
leaders of various sects of the city are mov- 

318 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 319 

ing about or assembled. It has always been 
the holy region of the city, near the Gardens 
of the Flower Religions and the Grave of Lin- 
coln and of Hunter Kelly. 

Avanel and I are in the spirit on this eve- 
ning. We walk, as though upon carpets of 
glory, and we hear from the black lips of the 
humble earth the cry: "Springfield Awake, 
Springfield Aflame. ' * 

The old giant toy globe, that used to be in 
the center of this field, is long gone. And 
where it stood, there has come up, since The 
Golden Book appeared, a great Apple-Amar- 
anth Vine, coming as it were, like Jack 's bean- 
stalk, suddenly. 

It is autumn and the whole air is fragrant 
with the honey of the fruit of this Apple- 
Amaranth, and bees are busy with the rich 
fruit. 

Every highest, fartherest bud that opens 
day after to-morrow, or in a thousand years, 
will flash with a spark and a flame, that has 
climbed up hundreds and thousands of miles 
from the roots that touch all the gardens of 
our city, up the old streets of Heaven, where 
this vine blooms today. 

In the twinkling of an eye, while the star 
chimes of Springfield are ringing new tunes, 
from the dimmest stars of the blue, from east, 



320 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

west, north and south, magic boats sweep 
down to the Amazonian field. 

It is happiness to be even the oldest of the 
prophets, who wait exhausted, after ages of 
service, praying and dreaming, stretched out 
on the decks of their swift boats, consumed 
with beautiful sorrow and hope. The honey 
of each different Amaranth, growing through 
the stars, has burnt all the strength of their 
bodies away, yet it gives to them stronger 
courage, hour by hour. When it touches their 
lips, all else is vanity. It is the live coal from 
the altar and is their new Heaven. 

The boats are now above the field, and some 
of them have rested near the earth, and some 
of the prophets are standing round the tree. 
Among them is that wild ancient man Isaiah. 
He gathers the whole company of Springfield 
people who are there on the edges of the 
field. Then there join, from the invisible 
world, many of the long dead Saints of 
Springfield and many saints from other capi- 
tals of this land. 

Isaiah speaks to us in words, such as he 
spoke to the Jews, when the earthly Jeru- 
salem had fallen, but they are words that 
shall ever be new till the last millennium is 
achieved. He stretches forth his hand and 
blesses our kneeling company and, with the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 321 

honey of this new Amaranth Flower still 
burning on his lips, like visible fire, he cries 
in a loud voice his old prophecies of the com- 
ing of the restored and redeemed Zion. 

Avanel and I are now in our ship above 
the town, and looking down on the sea of dim 
fleets. Avanel whispers: ''There are proph- 
ets in those boats from all the hermit caves 
and all the shrines in the moon and all the 
planets and all the suns. There are prophets 
that once walked the innermost streets of the 
far jungles of Heaven. 

**Yet the song that somes up from that sea 
and shakes our sails is: 'Springfield Awake, 
Springfield Aflame,' because the song and 
heart and blood of any prophet are for the 
city that will receive them." 

The boats are ranged in three great circles 
beneath us round the new Amaranth Vine. 
These ride on invisible sea-levels. They are 
not air ships with modern wings and propel- 
lers, but boats of the ancient type, such as 
were used by Hiram, King of Tyre when he 
brought the wood to build the temple of Solo- 
mon, such as St. Peter used on Lake Galilee, 
such as bore St. Paul to the ends of the world. 

While the star chimes of the city ring new 
tunes, the weird sailors below us pour down 
a crimson wine from, th^ sides of the boats. 



822 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

that mixes with the autumn leaves of the 
Amaranth Vine that swirl now between us 
and the whole towered city below. The wine 
and the leaves turn to crimson mist and crim- 
son storm, filling the city canyons with rolling 
rivers of storm to the top of the Sunset 
Towers. 

The boats rise, sailing as though travelling 
of their own knowledge. Even those that are 
empty and have no prophet sailors in them 
are up and away. Some of them seem like ex- 
halations from the perfume and gleam of the 
gigantic vine or from the light and mist of the 
city below. And so out to the stars scatter 
all these purposeful ships, some empty, some 
with prophet crews, and every boat has blaz- 
ing at its masthead the red and white star of 
Springfield and Illinois. 

And the song goes up with them to the 
stars: ** Springfield Awake, Springfield 
Aflame." Avanel says, ''That song comes be- 
cause the song and heart and blood of the 
proudest prophets from the proudest suns, 
are for the city that will receive them." 

We let our ship blow and drift as it will. 
But it sweeps up and up, with the swiftness 
of light. In less time than it takes a flower to 
open, we are carried to the parapets of ancient 
Heaven. We find our great-leaved, heavy- 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 323 

fruited Amaranth Vine, climbing up over tho 
closed gates and high wall-towers of Heaven 
and winding a long way into the old forest 
that has overgrown the streets. We find the 
new all conquering Springfield vine, spread- 
ing branches through the forest like a banyan 
tree. 

As this Amaranth from our little earthly 
village grows thicker, we see by its light a bit 
pf what the ancient Heaven has been. And it 
is still a solid place of soil and rock and metal. 
Where the Springfield Amaranth blooms 
thickest, shedding luminous glory from the 
petals in the starlight, this Heaven is shown 
to be an autumn forest, yet with the cedars 
of Lebanon, and sandalwood thickets, and the 
million tropic trees whose seeds have blown 
here from strange zones of the planets, and 
whose patterns are not the patterns of those 
of our world. Among these, vineclad pillars 
and walls are still standing, roofed palaces, so 
gigantic that, when our boat glides down the 
great streets between them, they overhang 
our masts. 

And from branches above us these strange 
manners of fruits tumble upon our decks for 
our feasting and delight. And there are be- 
neath our ship, as it sails on as it will, little 



324 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

fields long cleared in the forest, where grows 
weedy ungathered grain. 

Through hours and hours of the night our 
boat goes on, whether we will or no, through 
starlight and through storm-clouds and 
through flower-light. And the red star at the 
masthead and the sight of the proud face of 
Avanel keeps laughter in my bosom, and the 
heavenly breeze that blows on the flowers 
still sings to our hearts : * * Springfield Awake, 
Springfield Aflame." 

Out of the storm now, three great rocks 
appear, giving forth white light there on the 
far horizon, and this light burns on and on. 
At last our ship approaches. We see the great 
rocks are three empty thrones. 

These are the thrones of the Trinity, empty 
for these many years, just as the Ark of the 
Covenant and the Holy of Holies were bereft 
of the Presence, when Israel sinned. 

And now we are near, and see that the 
light that hangs round these mountain 
thrones is because of the vines of gigantic 
Amaranths, of strange design and of many 
colors, that bloom upon them. These vines 
have journeyed up through the ether and 
great spaces from many cities and many stars. 

Our boat sweeps to the side of the thrones, 
and we look down on what was once the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 325 

crystal sea, a wild green water now, with 
great fleets of idle boats, moored by its 
marshy banks, the boats of dead prophets 
and angels who lie turned to stone on their 
strange and beautiful decks. "These are the 
souls who sinned by refusing to enlist in the 
crusade against world wars," or, at least, so 
Avanel tells me from her heart. 

And this is all her dream, none of it mine, 
and without her all this is nothing. 

There are boats of the older days, galleons 
of rotted magnificence, wrecked and high and 
dry upon the sand bars, and the skeletons 
and driftwood of boats are scattered in the 
marshes by long forgotten storms and cy- 
clones. 

We disembark and tread our perilous 
way among these strange appearances. 
Sometimes they are as seemingly material 
as earth. Sometimes we are but walking on 
the dust of nebulae. 

Then we walk into the vine-clad forest 
that covers the pass between the nearest 
throne mountains, where broken steps are 
still to be found in the moss, and whisper 
to us to follow. There are many butterflies 
and bees that have taken too much of the 
blood of the fruit of the Amaranth Flower 
and are fallen down and some of them dead. 



326 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

The stair leads us up and through a dark 
pass and down into a deeper twilight. And 
the stair, slowly descending, whispers to us: 
''Follow." And thus we go, into the most 
abysmal and curious of valleys, whence, per- 
haps, ages ago, many spirits fled affrighted 
because of the loneliness. 

We walk amid rich ruins, miles and miles 
of vaulted halls, deep sheltered recesses, 
heaped with the purple dust of dead tapes- 
tries, mouldering porticos shaken by the 
wind. Avanel, fearing not follows the steps 
that still call: ''Follow, follow." She is eat- 
ing of the Amaranth that still blooms and 
bears fruit, eating the fruit from many stars, 
breathing strange perfume, humming her old 
songs and new songs, with heart aflame, a 
dauntless prophetess, prodigal and guide. 

But now even her spirit is weary and her 
soul has earth thoughts again, as we wander 
through the echoing throne rooms. She tries 
in vain to laugh in the desolate halls. In a 
fever and a fret and in unutterable, earthly 
weariness, we shuffle amid heaps of old shields 
'of blackened silver, amid helmets of brass 
and iron, amid ivory chariots and rotted 
harps and broken crowns and swords of 
rusted gold. And then we see a campfire 
we know and smell the familiar fragrance of 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 327 

pine wood and, in the crossing of two tre- 
mendous grass grown streets, we find him we 
found, first in a dream in springtime, and 
then at midsummer midnight of a far off 
June at Fifth and Monroe. The Handsome 
Medicine Man, Devil's Gold, is saying to us, 
as though resuming a conversation in which 
he had quite the best of us a moment ago : 

** After all, people are ranked in Spring- 
field according to their money. People with six 
thousand dollars apiece a year are considered 
decent and no questions are asked. People 
with a million in buried gold or alcohol are on 
a level of righteousness with the world saints, 
who are, of course, admitted to their class by 
generous dispensation. Heaven may be a 
'jungle but nothing will ever alter this great 
law," and the handsome jester. Devil's Gold, 
is shaking his bead-covered rattle, making 
inedicine and calling us by name. We are 
so tired from our long walk that we cannot 
but admire his gilded face and his yellow 
magic blanket. And, holding each other's 
hands like lovers, we stoop and admire our- 
selves in the golden pool that flickers in the 
great campfire he has impudently built at the 
crossing of two streets in Heaven. 

But we do not step into the pool as before- 
time. Our boat is beside us, it has overtaken 



328 THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 

us like some faithful tame giant swan, and 
Avanel whispers :" Take us where The Golden 
Book was written. ' ' And thus we are up and 
away. The boat carries us deeper, down the 
valley. We find the cell of Hunter Kelly, — 
St. Scribe of the Shrines. Only his handiwork 
remains to testify of him. Upon the walls of 
his cell he has painted many an illumination 
he afterward painted on The Golden Book 
margins and, in a loose pile of old torn and 
unbound pages, the first draft of many a fa- 
miliar text is to be found. His dried paint 
jars are there and his ink and on the wall 
hangs the empty leather sack of Johnny 
Appleseed, from which came the first sowing 
of all the Amaranths of our little city, and the 
Amaranth that led us here. 

And Avanel whispers: — "I ask my heart: 
— Where is Hunter Kelly, and my heart 
speaks to me as though commanded: *The 
Hunter is again pioneering for our little city 
in the little earth. He is reborn as the 
humblest acolyte of the Cathedral, a child 
that sings tonight with the star chimes, a 
red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old 
forge of the Iron Gentleman. Let us also 
return'." 

It is eight o'clock in the evening, at Fifth 
and Monroe. It is Saturday night, and the 



THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD 329 

crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and 
Chatterton's, and The Vaudette, and The 
Princess and The Gaiety. 

It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. 
The newsboys are bawling away, and I buy 
an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 
1, 1920. 

Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years 
away. 

The Register has much news of a passing 
nature. I am the most interested in the 
weather report, that tomorrow will be fair. 

Written in Washington Park Pavilion, 
Springfield, Illinois. 



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